Chamber and committees

Clinical nurse specialists make a valued contribution to delivering services and supporting patients and families who require specialist care. The Scottish Government has invested £2.5 million annually in the Specialist Nursing and Care Fund since 2015.

The Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, however the statutory responsibility for delivering or commissioning services at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for primary lymphoedema specialist nurses, are therefore matters for these bodies.

Information on the numbers of primary lymphoedema specialist nurses is not held centrally.

Our Health and Social Care Delivery Plan, published in December 2016, sets out our aim for Scotland to provide high quality services with a focus on prevention, early intervention and supported self-management. The plan sits alongside our National Clinical Strategy, which evidenced the need to change the way services are delivered in order to continue meet the healthcare needs of our population, setting out the framework for developing health services in Scotland for the next 10-20 years.

Within this context a Lymphoedema Short Life Working Group (SLWG) was established to consider improvements in lymphodema care in Scotland.

The Group focussed work on developing an integrated care pathway informed by a tiered model of care and support for people to self-manage. A significant outcome of The SLWG was the production of a proposal for the development of a SIGN Guideline, for the diagnosis, assessment and management of primary and secondary lymphoedema. SIGN are currently considering the proposal and next steps will be considered when the outcome is known.

The Scottish Government welcomed the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's (RCPCH) State of Child Health Report in 2017. At the time of publication, many of the policies highlighted in the report were already being taken forward in Scotland.

On 23 January 2018, the RCPCH published a Scorecard which has been developed by RCPCH UK to assess progress against each of the policy recommendations made in the report using a colour coded rating.

The RCPCH praised the Scottish Government for the progress made on many of its policies such as childhood obesity, breastfeeding, maternity care, child poverty and child and adolescent mental health.

We will continue to work closely with the RCPCH to monitor progress in each area on a regular basis.

The total number of hospital tooth extractions in Scotland for those aged under 18 years was (a) 10,419 in 2006-07 and (b) 9,049 in 2016-17. This is down from 13,115 in 1999-00.

Source: NHS National Services Scotland – Scottish Morbidity Records 00 (outpatient) and 01 (inpatient, daycase).

The Scottish Government is taking a range of actions to help increase the number of student teachers.

We have:

• Committed £88m this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers with the right skills.

• Provided support to universities in developing new innovative routes into teaching.

• Announced STEM bursaries of £20,000 for career changers to train to become teachers of priority STEM subjects, starting in August 2018.

• Launched the second phase of our “Teaching Makes People” recruitment campaign on 30 August.

• Created a new route into teaching specifically designed to attract high quality graduates in priority areas and subjects.

Student teacher numbers have risen by 7.5 per cent overall from 3,591 in 2016 to 3,861 in 2017. With these measures now in place we expect to see the number of people training as teachers continuing to rise.

The universities, as autonomous institutions, are responsible for the recruitment and selection of students to all their courses however in the case of initial teacher education courses, they are bound by the requirements of the Memorandum on Entry Requirements to Programmes of Initial teacher Education in Scotland which is published by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) as the independent, regulatory body for teachers. Universities are not able to enrol students to initial teacher education courses where minimum entry requirements have not been met.

We take the mental health of our young people very seriously. Every child and young person should have access to emotional and mental wellbeing support in school.

Mental Health First Aid Training is currently being delivered to school staff within secondary school communities by Education Scotland. The aim of the training is to provide staff with the relevant skills and knowledge to approach and support pupils who they think might be struggling with a mental health problem. This training complements the range of mental health strategies that are already in place within local authorities.

As part of the Scottish Government’s 10 year Mental Health Strategy we are currently reviewing this service and will roll out an improved mental health training service for all those who support young people in schools.

Education Scotland have also commenced a review of Personal and Social Education delivery in schools. Further information on the Review and what it will explore and evaluate can be found at the following Scottish Government webpage http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Education/Schools/HLivi/PSEreview.

We recognise the important protection the flu vaccine can offer.

Every year the Scottish Government invests in a national flu marketing campaign to promote flu vaccination amongst those who are eligible including everyone over the age of 65. We continue to work with NHS Scotland to actively encourage uptake of the flu vaccine. This includes gathering and sharing evidence of best practices, pursuing partnerships with health and age charities to encourage vaccination in those individuals most at risk of the effects of flu.

We will review and evaluate the 2017 annual marketing campaign to learn how to best encourage uptake of the flu vaccine. The 2018 national campaign will highlight the importance of the flu vaccine, raise awareness and challenge perceptions of the risks and consequences of flu amongst different eligible groups.

The statistics on joiners and leavers do not differentiate between nurses and midwifes. For both groups combined, there were 5,504 joiners and 5,168 leavers in 2016-17 (31 March to 31 March). The age composition of the joiners and leavers is not reported.

Limiting the contribution of calories from sugary or fatty snacks is a positive step towards tackling obesity. However, many of the 100 calorie snacks that are commercially available contain as much as half the recommended daily sugar intake for a child. Food Standards Scotland’s Let’s Change our Future campaign, aimed at parents of primary school aged children, contains advice about dropping or swapping snacks. This campaign has been run twice now with an independent evaluation showing it succeeding in its objectives to make parents think differently about the long-term health consequences of their children’s snacking habits.

The Scottish Government has taken a broad range of measures to support the promotion of healthy food to children including Eat Better Feel Better, our social marketing campaign. Healthy snacking forms a central part our 2018 campaign which aims to encourage and empower families to make simple yet effective healthy food and snack choices.

We are presently consulting on a bold new diet and obesity strategy. This proposes a package of measures to improve the food environment and improve children’s diet including limiting the promotion of products high in fat, sugar and salt and tackling advertising. The consultation on A Healthier Future - Action and Ambitions on Diet, Activity and Healthy Weight' runs until 31 January 2018.