Chamber and committees

There is variation and incompleteness in the recording of diagnoses in A&E. This means that it is not possible to produce accurate national reporting of trends in attendances due to psychiatric conditions. In 2016-17, around 3.8% of those attendances with a valid diagnosis code related to a psychiatric condition.

The Scottish Government has committed to recruiting an additional 250 Community Links Workers (CLWs) in practices in deprived areas with 40 in place by September 2017. The rollout will be phased until 2021. CLWs connect people to non-medical sources of support or resources in the community which are likely to help with their health problems. To ensure CLWs are reaching those people most in need, they are equipped to deal with a wide range of issues with a large proportion of their contacts being with people who have mental health issues.

Over the next 5 years the Scottish Government is increasing additional investment to £35 million for 800 additional mental health workers. We will be working with local partners on priorities, service models and types of workers. Some of this investment could go towards more community links workers across Scotland if that is what local needs and arrangements require.

The Information and Statistics Division (ISD) annual report “Prescribing in Mental Health” provides summary information on antidepressant use in Scottish Health Boards. This report is published online, the latest report was published on 4 October 2016 and is available at: http://www.isdscotland.org/Publications/ . Included within the data tables as part of this publication is a breakdown by health board of the number of anti-depressants prescribed from 2005-06 to 2015-16.

The Scottish Government has published “Key Information on the use of Antidepressants in Scotland” which can be found online at: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00456540.pdf

On 28^th June 2017, I met the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor General and the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, to discuss Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership’s safer drug consumption and heroin assisted treatment proposals.

Proposals for a combined safer drug consumption and heroin assisted treatment facility are matters for authorities in Glasgow to take forward at this time. Scottish Ministers have encouraged Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership to consult sensitively and robustly with relevant stakeholders and the public as they take their proposals forward.

On 16 June 2017, senior officials from Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership wrote to the Lord Advocate in connection with their safer consumption proposals. A written response to this correspondence will be provided in due course.

In response to Developing the Young Workforce: Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) developed a Gender Action Plan (GAP) to address gender imbalance at subject level in colleges and universities.

The GAP was published in August 2016 in partnership with Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, and other key stakeholders; and targets, amongst other things, an increase by five percentage points in the minority gender share in each of the 10 largest and most imbalanced college subject groups by 2021.

Colleges and universities have been asked to publish their own GAPs ahead of the new academic year, and these will be monitored annually by the SFC through the Outcome Agreement process, with the SFC due to publish their first annual progress report at the end of 2017.

The ambitions of the GAP are long-term, Audit Scotland noting in their Scotland’s Colleges 2017 report that addressing this issue will take a number of years.

In addition to work on the GAP the Scottish Government is currently developing a recruitment marketing campaign to attract people to train and work in the early learning and childcare sector. Working with a wide range of stakeholders, including colleges and the SFC, the aim is to attract significantly more males into that sector.

Improving gender equality is a priority for this Government and we are addressing the under-representation of girls and women in STEM subject courses and careers. Our STEM Education, Training and Lifelong Learning Strategy, to be finalised later this year, will set out how we will promote greater diversity across the uptake of STEM courses and within the STEM workforce.

We are currently supporting the Improving Gender Balance Scotland Project to challenge gender stereotyping in schools, and help young people make informed career decisions. Through the Developing the Young Workforce programme we are taking an integrated approach across education, training and employment to tackle inequality by enabling all young people to develop a range of employability skills to meet market demand, such as those needed by the STEM sector.

We are taking action to encourage women into technology-related careers. We invested over £1 million into the Digital World marketing campaign and Discover Digital World events to raise awareness of the varied and attractive careers available in ICT, particularly amongst women and young people. Going forward, we will also promote flexible working practices to employers, develop a mentoring framework for those considering, or looking to progress in, a career in tech, and create training opportunities for women career changers moving into the sector.

The Scottish Governments National Unscheduled Care Team is working closely with the local teams across NHS GG&C, including the Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI), to support the implementation of the six essential actions work.

We have recently been supporting the team at the GRI to establish a governance structure around the implementation of focussed actions that will support performance to improve; performance did see a significant and sustained dip but this is starting to show improvements. The latest weekly data shows that performance at the GRI against the 4 hour target has improved by over eight percentage points since week ending 2 July 2017, with the latest published weekly stats (w/e 30 July) showing performance at 92.0%. Key actions that have supported this improvement include new processes around patients being admitted to hospital that minimise delays for patients waiting for a bed.

We will continue to support the GRI to ensure sustainable performance going forward.

The Scottish Government recognises that there is a significant gender imbalance within this sector, this is a global issue across STEM professions that all major economies are attempting to tackle. We are not complacent however and we know we must continue to tackle it head on for inclusive growth.

As such ,through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership, the Scottish Government has made over £18 million available to help boost business’ and individual’s digital skills capabilities across Scotland Tackling the gender gap is integral to the partnership’s work and through the Digital Skills Investment Plan, have established a Gender Action Group and have published a gender action plan to tackle the gender gap in ICT subjects and careers.

The action plan is directed by research commissioned from Napier University, and launched on 2 November 2016. The plan’s actions focus on young women in education and those already in the workplace, or looking to return to work. Examples include; modules to promote flexible working practices to employers and the development of a mentoring framework for those considering, or looking to progress in, a career in tech.

To support an increase in the number of women in digital and the wider STEM professions the Scottish Government has established a Women Returners Programme, initially in the STEM sector, with £50,000 of funding via Equate Scotland. This project will allow women to get support in updating their skills to access the opportunities in this growing sector. Building on this, I announced additional funding of up to £200,000 and called for proposals to widen the initiative across sectors such as finance, where occupational segregation is a challenge.

In late April the First Minister announced funding of £500,000 for a Workplace Equality Fund to address long standing barriers in accessing the labour market. The aim of the fund is to reduce employment inequalities so that everyone – irrespective of gender, race or disability – has the opportunity to fulfil their potential, and improve Scotland’s economic performance. The Fund will support delivery of the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government; Race Equality Framework; Disability Action Plan; and Scotland’s Labour Market Strategy.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that both young women and men are encouraged to aspire to the full range of rewarding careers on offer to them in STEM.

We have published and consulted on our draft STEM Strategy for Education and Training which seeks to raise the level of knowledge and skills for all and provide opportunities to develop specialist skills for careers in STEM sectors.