NHS National Services Scotland, National Services Division (NSD) and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (NHS GGC) are working to improve waiting times for access to the highly specialist Complex Mesh Surgical Service. The ongoing need for service recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic, across all areas of need in terms of women’s health, has resulted in waiting times which are disappointing, and the frustration felt by women facing significant waits is wholly understandable. For this we apologise.

However, patients are being seen, surgeries carried out, and efforts are being made to increase capacity.

The Service now also writes to patients once they are added to the outpatient waiting list, advising that their referral has been received and offering an estimated waiting time for their first appointment. This letter provides a QR code that links to the recently upgraded Complex Mesh Surgical Service Website where patients can access information about what patients can expect during their visit.

Waiting times from decision on treatment to surgery are now generally within the 12 week treatment time guarantee.

More generally, the Scottish Government is committed to eradicating long waits and we’ve already seen a significant reduction in the longest waits (over 2 years) since targets were announced. We are committed to providing further reductions through our £1bn NHS Recovery plan to increase health service capacity. We are also working closely with Health Boards to support implementation of alternative pathways and initiatives to support people being seen more quickly and increase capacity to ensure sustainability.

The Scottish Government is aware of this proposal. During the Lord Advocate’s statement to Parliament on 16 January 2024, I am aware there was discussion of this issue. The Lord Advocate explained that:

‘… It is misleading to suggest that I could simply attend the appeal court with a list of cases and tell the court of criminal appeal to quash the convictions. There is such a process but, for reasons of sound public policy and in recognition of the constitutional role of our court of appeal, prosecutors always have to be able to explain why they are no longer relying on a conviction. As I have explained, not every Horizon case will involve a miscarriage of justice. In some cases, there was sufficient evidence to support a criminal conviction. That is demonstrated by the material from England and Wales that shows that, of the cases that have been referred to the Court of Appeal in England, only some—not all—have resulted in a conviction being quashed because of a miscarriage of justice. Therefore, it is not as simple as my providing a list of convictions to be quashed.’

National Services Scotland are currently developing a Primary Care Data and Intelligence platform, which will provide a modern digital infrastructure to unlock the value of data from general practice, including prevalence data on neurological conditions. The platform will be delivered by March 2026, in line with commitments in the Care in the digital age: Delivery plan 2023-24 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-25624.on 18 March 2024. 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 .

On 22 February, the Under-Secretary of State for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business stated that the UK Government would introduce legislation to reverse only the convictions of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses convicted in courts in England and Wales. This followed the Scottish Government making clear on 10 January in a letter from the First Minister to the Prime Minister that UK-wide legislation would be the appropriate response to this issue. The position of the Scottish Government was also made in further letters from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.

Following the UK Government announcement on 22 February, I wrote to the Minister the following day to make clear that the Scottish Government remained of the view that the best way to ensure a solution that treats all affected sub-postmasters across the United Kingdom equitably is for the Westminster Parliament to legislate to overturn the convictions of those affected across the whole of the UK, and asking the UK Government to reconsider its approach on this matter.

On 13 March, the UK Government introduced its Bill to reverse the convictions of affected sub-postmasters and post office employees convicted in courts in England and Wales. The Deputy First Minister wrote to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations on 14 March urging him to make good on the commitment he made at the meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee on 12 March to consider extending the Bill to cover convictions in courts in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This reflects the fact that the cause of these wrongful convictions, wherever they occurred, is the defective Post Office Horizon IT system and the failure of the Post Office to disclose relevant information about it to prosecutors.

However, if the UK Government maintains its position that it will legislate only to reverse convictions of sub-postmasters convicted in England and Wales, we will introduce legislation in the Scottish Parliament to reverse the convictions of affected sub-postmasters in Scotland. Any such Bill will have to be passed after the equivalent UK Bill to ensure that the approach is compatible with the approach taken in the UK Bill and sub-postmasters convicted in Scotland whose convictions are reversed can access the Horizon compensation scheme operated by the UK Government.

Scottish Government officials are continuing to engage with UK Government officials on this matter.

The Scottish Government is aware of the reported comments by the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales.

Any expedited process for hearing appeals is a matter for the judiciary, who are independent of Scottish Ministers. This process would also only be able to consider those cases which have been referred back to the courts and would not be able to address, for example, any cases where consideration by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has been delayed by difficulties in obtaining timely information from the Post Office, or where no person has approached the Commission for their case to be reassessed.

Given that the UK Government has introduced legislation for England & Wales the Scottish Government plan to ensure, insofar as possible, equal treatment for Scottish sub-postmasters. Any Scottish solution will need to be compatible with both the proposed UK Government legislation and the UK compensation scheme in which the Scottish Government has no locus.

NHS Inform has a dedicated long COVID microsite for people with ongoing symptoms after Covid-19, accessible at Long-term effects of COVID-19 | NHS inform . The information was updated in November 2023 following a user research exercise conducted with people living with long COVID to understand their experiences of accessing the information and identify areas for further development of the content.

More broadly, current COVID-19 specific guidance is still in place for the public and wider guidance for individuals and non-clinical workplaces, promoting a risk-based approach to building resilience to respiratory infections, including COVID-19. Any change in guidance will be driven by the data and evidence gathered, as well as expert advice.

Section 8.1 of the ‘COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19’ developed jointly by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) recommends to “provide access to multidisciplinary services, if available, [. . .] for assessing physical and mental health symptoms and carrying out further tests and investigations. Services should be led by a doctor with relevant skills and experience and appropriate specialist support, taking into account the variety of presenting symptoms.”

The rationale section of the guideline relating to this recommendation notes that “1 model would not fit all areas” and “in areas where multidisciplinary services are not available, services may be provided through integrated and coordinated primary care, community, rehabilitation and mental health services.”

The Bank Refund Guarantee for the two new vessels for the Little Minch routes was signed on 3 February 2023. The name of the financial institution that provided the guarantee is commercially confidential.

Patient related experience and patient outcome measures will be recorded through NHS Boards’ use of the C-19 YRS digital screening tool. The provision of heath data through this tool will assist in understanding the provision and effectiveness of long COVID services. Where possible, the data will be disaggregated by age, gender, ethnicity, and deprivation quintile. This will support understanding of any inequitable variation in service provision, experience and outcomes which may need to be addressed through service changes.

The Strategic Network has contracted the University of Leeds to support the initial evaluation of long COVID services in Scotland, using data from the C19-YRS tool. The outputs of the evaluation are expected following the end of the financial year.