Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-12747 on 24 November 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Government welcomes this report, which builds on our existing fostering and adoption evidence base in Scotland. In relation to your enquiry, the Care Inspectorate report states that in 2016 20% of sibling groups placed in either local authority or independent foster placements were separated. Although this is a slight overall improvement from 2015 (24%) we remain absolutely clear that secure attachments, such as children have with their siblings, are central to healthy development and wellbeing.

At this time we are considering the findings in the Care Inspectorate report. However, I acknowledge that the report highlights a need to make sure the best interests of the child are at the heart of all decisions and the complexities faced by professionals involved in each case to work together to find the best immediate and long-term outcome for each child. Separation of sibling groups occurs as a result of a number of considerations; all undoubtedly difficult, and we would always encourage Local Authorities to place siblings together when it is in the best interests of all siblings concerned.

The independent Care Review - being led by children with experience of care - is looking at Scotland’s underpinning legislation, practice and culture to identify where policies need to be improved.

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;

• recently announced STEM bursaries of £20,000 for career changers to train to become teachers of priority STEM subjects, which includes maths, starting in August 2018;

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

• created a new route into teaching specifically designed to attract high quality graduates in priority areas and subjects. The tender exercise for this closed on 16 November and the evaluation process will commence shortly.

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 Borders Health and Social Care Partnership is responsible for tackling delayed discharges from hospital. The Scottish Government provides the partnership in Borders with £640,000 per year specifically to deal with this issue.

It is clear that to eradicate child poverty, we must tackle a range of social and economic drivers. Income, however, is the key underlying factor. That’s why the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill on 8 November, setting in statute four ambitious income-based targets for 2030.

To reach these targets will require a range of action to be taken across government portfolios, and we will publish our proposals for this within the first action plan due by April 2018.

Part 1 of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan published on 28 June 2017 is clear on the need to project the future supply and demand of the NHSScotland workforce, using scenario planning to factor in future population demand and workforce supply changes such as retirals.

With strategic oversight from the National Workforce Planning Group set up under Part 1, the Scottish Government is working closely with stakeholders in NHSScotland and NHS Education Scotland to develop the workforce data and scenario planning capacity required to build an accurate picture of the workforce needed to deliver safe, high quality NHSScotland services in future.

Within our Health and Social Care Delivery Plan we aim to reduce occupied bed days by 10 percent (around 400,000 bed days) by reducing avoidable admissions, delays and inappropriate long stay delays in hospital.

The Scottish Government has funded NHS National Services Scotland Information Services Division to provide data intelligence and support for Integration Authorities to allow them to continuously monitor, evaluate and report progress locally. Integration Authorities are also required to publically report on progress against nationally agreed integration indicators in their annual performance reports.

Scottish Government is working closely with health boards through the Modern Outpatient Programme to transform services. This programme aims to reduce the demand for outpatient services and deliver care closer to patients’ homes. The Scottish Access Collaborative, which will be launched on 22 November, is based on a set of key principles and will help transform scheduled care and put services on a sustainable footing. This builds on extra investment of £50 million to cut waiting times this year.

Part 1 of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan published on 28 June 2017 made specific recommendations on strengthening available NHSScotland workforce data; The Plan commits to increasing training places for nurses and midwives by a further 1,600. That is 2,600 additional nursing and midwifery training places over this Parliament The Plan goes further and increases the number of medical training places by up to a further 100 over the lifetime of this Parliament.

On the need to respond more proactively to changing service and demographic demand, for example by using scenario planning; and on working with NHS Boards to reduce the overall use of agency staff through use of Regional and National Staff Banks.

These recommendations are being taken forward with NHS partners and stakeholders, with strategic oversight from the National Workforce Planning Group.

The Scottish Government published Part 1 of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan on 28 June 2017. This makes specific recommendations in key areas to strengthen national, regional and local improvements to NHS workforce planning.

Parts 2 and 3 of the Plan, respectively covering workforce planning in Social Care and Primary Care, will bring this together iteratively to enable different systems to make the right links. A further integrated Plan will be published in 2018.