Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is increasing the number of pharmacist pre-registration training places from 200 by an additional 120 places over 5 years from December 2019, to create the opportunity for more pharmacists to enter the profession. To date we have increased places by 76, with the remaining 44 places due to be available by 24/25.

A new Earlier Cancer Diagnosis Vision was developed as part of the new ‘Cancer Strategy for Scotland’ (published June 2023). The vision is to reduce later stage disease by 18 percentage points in 10 years’ time with a focus on reducing the health inequality gap.

As reflected in the Strategy’s accompanying 3 year action plan, following an extensive review of available evidence with key partners, lung, head and neck and colorectal cancers have been identified as initial national priority areas. However, a number of actions will be delivered and have a halo affect across multiple cancer types including delivering Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) campaigns and procuring a new primary care cancer education platform for NHS Scotland.

Inspiring Scotland through the ‘Support in the Right Direction’ (SiRDS) programme, provides access to independent advice and advocacy in 31 local authorities, with a forthcoming scoping project tasked with identifying a SiRD partner to offer services in the Moray area from FY 2023-2024. SiRDS is supporting over 9,000 people and families.

The Scottish Government funds the Personal Assistant Network Scotland (PANS) , which is a Personal Assistant (PA) national membership organisation offering a free photo ID card as well as advice. PANS has also helped to promote the first ever online PA handbook which provides valuable information for PAs.

Decisions on applications for section 36 consent are made on a case-by-case basis, weighing consideration of the benefits and impacts of the proposal, relevant policy, and all other material considerations.

Last week, we published our 2023-24 Programme for Government, which outlined our commitment to take action on the impacts of single use vapes.

We will be consulting on measures to tackle the environmental impacts of single use vapes, including a proposal to ban their sale. Our approach will be subject to further engagement, policy development and consultation and developed in the spirit of the new deals recently agreed with local government and with business.

In addition, our 2022 consultation on Tightening Rules on Advertising and Promoting Vaping Products proposed restrictions on vaping products that strike a balance between protecting non-smokers from the potential harms of vaping, whilst providing existing adult smokers with the information they need to make an informed choice on cessation.

We published our consultation analysis in September 2022 and are considering next steps as a priority, which will form part of our refreshed Tobacco Action Plan when it is published in autumn 2023.

The latest statistical release for Free Personal and Nursing Care is for the period 2022-23 and was published on 05 September 2023. Two published excel files accompany the publication, for people aged between 18 – 64 and for people aged over 65. These can be found at: Supporting documents - Free Personal and Nursing Care, Scotland, 2022-23 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The relevant data can be found in table 2 within both excel files.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-20714 on 19 September 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Daily Mile Foundation have developed their 'The Daily Mile Scotland Strategy 2023 - 2026' which was published in August 2023 to align with the start of the new academic year. Scottish Government are working closely with the Foundation to support the delivery of the strategy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-20796 on 12 September 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Local authorities have powers to award discretionary local relief under section 3A of the Local Government (Financial Provisions etc.) (Scotland) Act 1962, as inserted by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. Table 1 shows relief awarded under these powers by local authority.

Table 1: Local relief awards by council area, 2016-17 to 2022-23, £000