Chamber and committees

As our spring campaign officially ended on 30 June, the level of stock held in Scotland is minimal, after a programme where we delivered over 490,000 doses. The number of doses currently held by NHS Scotland is calculated to be around 96,000.

In addition there remains residual stock allocated to Scotland within the ownership of UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) that has not been drawn down by NHS Scotland health boards.

The Scottish Government is committed to equitable and timely access to general and specialist palliative care services, as needed, by each person of any age, living with any illnesses, in all places. We want people to receive care where they feel most comfortable. For many, but not all, this will be at home supported by their family and friends and cared for by primary care teams and care staff.

It is the responsibility of Integrated Joint Boards to plan and commission adult palliative care services which are provided in a wide range of settings including acute hospitals, community hospitals, specialist palliative care units, hospices, care homes and people’s own homes.

We are currently developing a new Palliative and End of Live Care Strategy with an overarching aim that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death and bereavement support based on their needs and preferences, including support for families and carers.

The Scottish Government’s Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Gateway was involved in managing the statutory correspondence between Aberdeen City Council and the consultation authorities (Scottish Environment Protection Agency), NautreScot and Historic Environment Scotland) for Aberdeen’s Beachfront Development Framework as required by the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting local communities through city regeneration projects such as the Aberdeen beachfront regeneration and will work with Aberdeen City Council and other partners as they take forward its regeneration.

Under the Bathing Water (Scotland) Regulations 2008, Scottish Ministers designate bathing waters where they expect a large number of people to bathe, having regard to past trends and infrastructure and facilities provided, or other measures taken to promote bathing. Across Europe the meaning of a large number of bathers ranges up 300 bathers per day, which is much higher than Scotland’s 150 bathers.

Following extensive bather surveys across Scotland and a public consultation, the Scottish Government developed a policy regarding the designation of bathing waters. That policy states that 150 people per day, or thereabouts, using the water for bathing regularly throughout the season would be considered to be a large number of bathers.

In determining whether a large number of bathers are expected to bathe there, Scottish Ministers must also have regard to past trends, infrastructure and facilities and promotion of bathing at any proposed bathing water.

Scottish waters are home to a diverse range of cetaceans (e.g., whale, dolphins and porpoise) and their protection is a high priority for the Scottish Government.

The developing UK Dolphin and Porpoise Strategy will play an important role in identifying action that can be taken to maintain the conservation status of these species in our waters. The Scottish Government is working in partnership with the other UK administrations and members of the working group, with the aim of publishing the strategy in early 2024.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government continues to support work across a range of areas to safeguard cetaceans in Scottish waters.

Our vision for future fisheries in Scotland has sustainable fisheries management at its core. Through the Future Catching Policy and the Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative, we will continue work to monitor fisheries and, take concrete action to support fishers to avoid catching or minimise interaction with sensitive marine species (including cetaceans) through a suite of technical and spatial measures where required. We anticipate the analysis from the Future Catching Policy consultation to be published in summer.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government will be launching a consultation imminently on proposals to close fishing for sandeel in Scottish waters. Sandeels play an important role in aiding the long-term sustainability and resilience of the marine ecosystem and are an important food source for many species, including marine mammals.

These measures, and other ongoing work to address marine litter, improve marine enhancement, and protect our marine wildlife in Marine Protected Areas, all contribute to achieving the Scottish Government’s vision for clean, healthy, safe, productive and diverse seas.

It is for individual Health Boards to ensure that communities have access to pharmacy services within a reasonable distance. However, in our strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ (2017) we committed to enhancing access to pharmaceutical care in remote and rural communities, which included use of Attend Anywhere for pharmacist clinics, and use of Near Me for remote and rural access to pharmaceutical care. We commissioned NES to work with remote and rural NHS Boards to explore mechanisms to attract more pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to work in remote and rural communities; ensuring any associated education and training needs are flexibly met. We also committed to testing a pharmacy longitudinal clerkship.

There are remote and rural longitudinal clerkships occurring in NHS Borders, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Highland, NHS Grampian and NHS Lanarkshire, all of which feed into a new piece of Additional Cost of Teaching Pharmacy research in collaboration with both Scottish Schools of Pharmacy.

In addition, to promote pharmacy technician recruitment in remote and rural areas, a number of senior pharmacy technicians attend school careers fairs etc to raise awareness of the role. All vacancies for the Pharmacy Technician Technical Apprenticeship are advertised on the Apprenticeships.scot website. Skills Development Scotland also provides an additional rural uplift for apprentices whose main employment and normal working hours are based in Argyll and Bute, Isle of Arran, Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles. Some of the Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians in the remote and rural areas are undertaking placements in primary care and community pharmacy whilst undertaking the Technical Apprenticeship.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in developing a joint programme to encourage more students, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy, including ensuring the output reaches deprived and remote and rural communities.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Our Union Street white paper and the range of ideas it captures.

The Scottish Government recognises that our cities and towns are a national asset and is pleased to see that many of the aims in the Our Union Street white paper align with aims of National Planning Framework 4.

The Scottish Government would encourage Our Union Street, as it progresses, to consider entering its achievements into the government’s new Scottish Planning Innovation Awards in the future.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to successfully support pandemic preparedness and resilience in Scotland, as described in the answer to question S6W-19343 on 11 July 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 Scottish Government engages with the pharmaceutical industry directly as well as via the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, and through Four Nations partners as part of UK-wide pandemic preparedness and resilience measures. This has ranged from long-standing arrangements to build and maintain stockpiles of medicines to address challenges from potential influenza pandemics to more recent measures to establish stockpiles of medicines and associated consumables for the response to COVID-19. Collaborative working across the UK also includes working in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to develop onshore vaccine manufacturing capacity, with potential for pandemic deployment.

Ministers are offered a SG mobile telephone on appointment. Our records show costs per year as follows:

2018-19 - £2,210

2019-20 - £3,802

2020-21 - £1,490

2021-22 - £1,463

2022-23 - £10,957