Chamber and committees

The Multiple Supplier Framework Agreement for Maritime Consultancy Services was awarded to the following suppliers (1) Stantec UK Limited (2) Turner and Townsend Project Management Limited and (3) Fisher Advisory Ltd. Transport Scotland publishes the results of all regulated procurements via contract award notices on the Public Contracts Scotland website. The Contract Award Notice is available with the following link: https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JUN451348

There is no specific provision for long COVID research in the Scottish Government Budget for 2024-25.

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO).

The CSO's Translational Clinical Studies (TCS) Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research (HIPS) Committee each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website.

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

Applications on long-COVID are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through the CSO's standard independent peer review process.

To date 2 research projects on long COVID have been funded via this route:

HIPS/23/08

Long COVID And Frontline Public Service Occupations: Impacts On Employees And Organisations

University of Stirling

Dr Alice MacLean/Professor Kate Hunt

Funding awarded £296,960

HIPS/22/33

Caring for Long COVID in Primary Care: Using Patient and Professional Experience to Build Co-Designed Solutions. A Participatory, Mixed Methods Study.

University of Glasgow

Professor Catherine O’Donnell

Funding awarded £297,900

Through UK-wide funding agreements, researchers based in Scotland are able to access the following research funding programmes administered by the National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR):

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME)

Evidence Synthesis

Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR)

Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

Invention for Innovation (i4i)

Programme Development Grants (PDG)

Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR)

Public Health Research (PHR)

Research for Social Care (RfSC)

Within their individual remits, the above programmes can consider applications for research in long COVID.

CSO is working with the health research community in Scotland to ensure awareness of these opportunities and to maximise the number of high quality applications from Scotland to these research funding programmes going forward.

Addressing obesity is a priority for the Scottish Government, this financial year we have provided core funding of £8.25 million to health boards to deliver adult, children and young people’s weight management services.

The Scottish Government remains committed to taking forward the wide range of actions set out in our 2018 Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan to deliver our vision for a Scotland where everyone eats well and has a healthy weight.

The quantitative impact of all policies is being tracked through our nationally representative survey on health. The latest results, for the year 2022, were published on 5 December 2023 on the Scottish Government website . Obesity rates were 29% for adults and 18% of children were at risk of obesity. Obesity rates have been measured annually in the Scottish Health Survey since 2008.

The Deputy National Clinical Director and Scottish Government officials met with the clinical leads for ovarian cancer in the Northern Cancer Alliance (NCA) and the South East Scotland Cancer Network (SCAN) during Summer 2023.

Ongoing improvements to the service, including waiting times for treatment, and any potential support required from the Scottish Government were discussed.

We are currently working to establish the existing levels of awareness of stroke symptoms and FAST through polling research. More detailed research exploring awareness of stroke symptoms and FAST is planned following the conclusion of this work and this will help inform future public awareness campaign content.

The 2023 edition of The National Clinical Guideline for Stroke states that more research into improving public awareness, and the appropriate action upon suspecting a stroke, is needed. Regarding pre-hospital identification of stroke, the Guideline also states that further evidence is required before a recommendation regarding the use of other screening tools that screen for non-FAST stroke symptoms could be made.

We will regularly review this position based on the best available evidence. The National Advisory Committee for Stroke will be asked to review any emerging evidence regarding public awareness and stroke screening tools and provide advice to the Scottish Government regarding the most appropriate action.

This is a matter for each territorial NHS Board. The information requested is not held centrally.

Care and support for people with long COVID is being provided across the full range of services delivered by our NHS. This includes assessment in a setting close to home by local primary care teams, and referral to community-based rehabilitation services or secondary care settings for further investigation of specific complications where clinically appropriate.

As the Deputy First Minister set out in her Budget Statement on 19 December 2023, the financial position across Scottish Government is extremely challenging and work is ongoing to identify measures to address the continued challenges in 2024-25 and beyond.

Integration Joint Boards are responsible for the governance, planning, and resourcing of adult palliative care services, including hospices, using the integrated budget under their control. We will therefore continue to work with Integration Joint Boards and independent hospices to explore solutions and options for longer term sustainable planning and commissioning for the independent hospice sector.

Last year, Scottish Enterprise (SE), working with Innovate UK, invested £15m to establish the state-of-the-art Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre. The facility works with a range of partners in the pharmaceutical industry to conduct research and development, creating leading edge solutions for the manufacture of medicines.

In addition, just a few weeks ago, SE committed around £10m to support the creation of a new oligonucleotides manufacturing innovation centre, that will help pharmaceutical companies to undertake critical phase I and phase II trials to manufacture these highly effective new medicines.

In combination, these centres establish Scotland as a key player in the rapidly growing advanced manufacturing sector and we expect that they will act as a powerful magnet for inward investment and the creation of highly skilled jobs. This is already producing results e.g. Valneva will manufacture its world-first vaccine for the mosquito-bourne Chickungunya virus, in its new manufacturing facility in Livingston.

In support of a range of priority commitments within Scotland’s population strategy , Scottish Government is developing a Talent Attraction and Migration Service, expected to launch in 2024. The service will help address Scotland's demographic challenges, attract and welcome more workers from outside Scotland with the skills that our economy will need and support those who have chosen to make Scotland their home.

This is a matter for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The information requested is not held centrally.