Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this data.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes regular statistics relating to waiting times in A&E.

The latest publication can be found here: Accident and emergency - Urgent and unscheduled care - Healthcare system - Public Health Scotland

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the number of callers who report being unable to access care after multiple attempts to contact NHS 24.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS 24, including revising performance indicators to better reflect demand and improve service delivery. Over the past two financial years, NHS 24 has received £28.3 million in additional funding, enabling the recruitment of 22 extra clinicians and achieving its highest-ever treatment capacity.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39185 on 8 August 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 requires local authorities to assess rent conditions in their areas and report their findings and recommendation to Scottish Ministers. The first report is to be provided by 27 May 2027 and on a five yearly basis thereafter. Scottish Ministers may then designate rent control areas where it is deemed necessary and proportionate to protect tenants’ social and economic interests.

The Act provides powers for local authorities and Scottish Ministers to collect rental data from landlords to support their assessments.

Data will play a vital part in rent control being successful and we continue to work with local authorities on developing the detail of the assessment process. Work is also continuing on the potential options for collecting data, including consideration of the use of the landlord register as a vehicle to collate data collected in support of rent control.

Please see the following table with details of the complaints HIS has received about maternity care provided by maternity units in each year since 2020-21, broken down by maternity unit.

The information held by HIS relates to concerns raised through its Responding to concerns – Healthcare Improvement Scotland that were referred by another national organisation; raised with HIS by an NHS member of staff, and one complaint that was raised with by a member of the public. Whilst complaints from members of the public are not usually within the remit of the RTC process or HIS’s remit, the HIS Executive Review Team agreed that in that instance an assessment should be undertaken.

We expect all women who experience pelvic floor trauma and post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) will have this recorded within the electronic maternity record. Rates of third- and fourth-degree tears for each Board are available on the Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Dashboard: Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Dashboard. Data on PPH is collected by Healthcare Improvement Scotland as part of the Scottish Patient Safety Perinatal Programme.

We have written to all NHS Boards identifying the Obstetric Anal Sphincter Injury (OASI) care bundle as an approach which can be used by maternity services with a view to reducing the incidence of third- and fourth-degree tears. This will be one of several priorities for consideration by the expert members of the Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce.

I was first made aware of issues with maternity services in NHS Lothian in December 2024. At that time Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) had already started an investigation following whistleblower reports. I met with Lothian Chief Executive and Chair, and they outlined the improvement work they had underway. At my request, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nursing Officer/Deputy Chief Nursing Officer began working directly with NHS Lothian on the issues, providing support and reporting back to Ministers on progress. They noted that NHS Lothian was taking forward a suitable programme of work to address the issues raised as a priority. However the complexity of the issues and improvement required, particularly cultural change, would take time to take full effect.

Following the unannounced HIS inspection, the decision was made to escalate NHS Lothian’s maternity services to Level 3 of NHS Scotland’s Support and Intervention Framework. I have met with NHS Lothian’s Chief Executive to discuss the findings of the report and wider concerns on patient safety oversight, leadership, staff wellbeing and delays in care. NHS Lothian has provided assurances that they will move quickly to implement the required changes and I am scheduled to meet with the Chief Executive and Chair of NHS Lothian on 25 November for an update on progress.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) commenced their safe delivery of care inspection of all 18 obstetric maternity units in January this year. HIS publishes its methodology for the maternity inspection programme on its website: Safe delivery of care in maternity units inspection programme – Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

All of the inspections carried out by HIS are independent, unannounced and specific to each hospital and NHS Board. This allows for a real-time response to emerging issues and allows us to take a local approach, ensuring lessons are learned and improvements made quickly.

HIS has published inspection reports for Ninewells Hospital Dundee in May 2025 and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in October 2025. The Scottish Government is notified when HIS inspectors begin a Safe Delivery of Care inspection at a hospital. In addition to the published reports HIS have undertaken unannounced inspections of three further maternity units, and we expect to see those reports publish in due course.

Our commitment to achieving net zero by 2045 is unwavering, and we are taking bold and decisive action to implement the necessary policies to reduce emissions in line with our new statutory carbon budget targets. On 6 November we published a draft Climate Change Plan which sets out our intended action across key sectors over the next 15 years. A revised monitoring and evaluation framework is being developed to support this work. The framework will continue to monitor key emissions sources and evaluate delivery of the key actions required to achieve our Carbon Budgets. The indicators used to evaluate delivery are currently being reviewed, it is anticipated some will be retained where they remain relevant, while new indicators will be introduced to reflect new or changed activities and where data availability allows.

The requested information on how many new midwives and nurses have been recruited at maternity units in each year since 2020-21 is not held centrally.

Information on the number of nurses and midwives employed by each NHS board, as well as the numbers joining the nursing and midwifery job families each year, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence .