Chamber and committees

There are two standing groups which support the implementation of the Women’s Health Plan .

The Women’s Health Plan Implementation Programme Board provides strategic oversight for the implementation of the Women’s Health Plan programme and reports to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health. An officials’ working group referred to as a Delivery Group supports the Programme Board.

There are a number of networks and short-term sub-groups which are taking forward particular priorities identified in the Plan. More information about some of this work can be found in our recent interim progress update .

The Scottish Government provides funding annually to Health Boards for smoking cessation and prevention services. The funding is provided as part of a wider Outcomes Framework allocation, whereby budget is provided to Health Boards to cover a range of outcomes. It is up to Health Boards to decide how much of this funding to allocate to each outcome. The published Scottish Budget for 2023-2024 includes £74.1 million for the Outcomes Framework.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government do not currently have plans to add a section on chronic UTIs to NHS inform at this time. The NHS 24 Clinical Change Governance Group (CCGG) routinely assess new and updated clinical guidelines to ensure the clinical content on NHS inform is underpinned as far as possible with current clinical evidence. The group will continue to consider what improvements are required regarding information on UTIs based on any new evidence or changes to clinical guidelines or pathways that arise.

NHS inform does advise that if acute symptoms do not improve, get worse, or come back after initial treatment, the patient should return to their GP for further advice. Thereafter the GP should follow relevant clinical guidelines that outline how to treat and manage chronic UTIs for individual patients.

As members of PIARC (World Road Association) and the National Winter Service Research Group (NWSRG), Transport Scotland routinely participates and contributes to research programmes to enable the production of industry best practice.

In 2020, Transport Scotland commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to undertake an introductory review into the effects of the use of rock salt on the major structures and bridges on the Scottish trunk road network.

Transport Scotland are currently reviewing the outcomes of this research including the next phases of research and potential use of alternative de-icing products as advised by the findings.

As an increase in the standard applied to the treatment of footpaths in the recently awarded Scottish Ministers Network Management Contracts (NMCs), precautionary footpath treatments are now undertaken using liquid treatment applications.

The Scottish Government and COSLA agreed jointly in 2018 to a significant investment in the training of educational psychologists, to address a shortfall in numbers of practitioners across Scotland. This investment was made to secure a workforce for employment in Scotland, acknowledging that there are a range of career paths available including those who require part-time employment.

Under the grant terms and conditions of the Qualification in Educational Psychology (QEP), trainees must make every reasonable effort to secure employment as an Educational Psychologist with a local authority to begin as soon as possible after the completion of the Training Programme.

Failure to meet these requirements may result in default of the grant terms and conditions. In these circumstances the full Grant Funds received by or in respect of the Trainee, or a pro rata share, may be required to be repaid to the Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government is required to deliver a balanced budget and outturn in each year. This has been consistently delivered through prudent and effective financial management, balancing fiscal constraints with priorities. In July 2021 Scottish Government launched the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF), which subsumed the Neonatal Expenses Fund (NEF) to create a single unified fund. These funds are demand led and the Scottish Government has ensured full funding against demand in each year since 2018/19.

Improving menopause care is one of the priorities of the Government’s Women’s Health Plan. There is now a specialist menopause service in every NHS Board, with a buddy system in place for the Island Boards. Women can access accurate and comprehensive information on NHS Inform, where the signs and symptoms of menopause is consistently in the top 10 of most viewed pages, and education and training for general practice is being developed.

The Scottish Government is providing additional investment of over £1 billion for health and social care in 2023-24, taking funding to a record high of over £19 billion. This funding is already supporting menopause services, as well as delivery of specific actions relating to women’s health as we continue to drive forward the implementation of the Plan.

Since its creation in August 2020 and 31st March 2023 the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund has awarded £52,188,302 in grant funding. The breakdown across financial years can be found in the following table:

Following the testing period the Early Implementer Boards noted that no negative feedback was received from families about the process. However, due to only a small number of babies being transferred this made it difficult to achieve the depth of parent feedback hoped for.

In order to capture parent representation in the Options Appraisal and Best Start Programme Board decision making process, the Chief Executive of Bliss sits on our Best Start Programme Board and was a participant in the options appraisal process, representing the views of neonatal families.

As part of the next phase, Scottish Government will be consulting with families in the affected areas on implementation of the proposals, so that we can take account of their concerns when the pathways and processes for the new model of care are designed. This will affect a very small number of families however it is important that we hear the voices of those families to input into design of service delivery.

The Best Start emphasises parents as key partners in caring for their baby and aims to keep mothers and babies, and families together as much as possible in the crucial early weeks, with services designed around them. We have a number of measures already in place to support families with babies in neonatal care:

• Providing accommodation for parents to stay on or near neonatal units and facilities within the unit to encourage kangaroo skin to skin care and early support for breastfeeding;
• Roll out of the Young Patients Family Fund (formerly the Neonatal Expenses Fund) to support families with the costs of travel, accommodation and food whilst their baby is in neonatal care; and
• Repatriating babies to their local neonatal units as soon as clinically possible

Neonatal units have agreed to continue to seek parent feedback to ensure opportunities to improve the experiences of families are identified on an ongoing basis.