Chamber and committees

Relational care, or relational continuity aims to ensure the same healthcare professional provides treatment and care for a person over time, allowing development of trust and understanding.

Relational continuity is discussed in more detail in the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland's 2024-25 Annual Report Realistic Medicine: Critical Connections.

The Chief Medical Officer has again promoted the need for greater relational continuity of care in his latest annual report Our Path Ahead.

We are exploring options to increase the focus on relational continuity of care as part of this year's Frailty Directed Enhanced Service in general practice.

Our record investment package of £310 million over 3 years to expand the general practice workforce is supported by guidance which recognises the importance of relational continuity of care and advises practices to consider how best to assure GP capacity in ways that actively provide relational continuity of care for patients where this is in their interests.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect comprehensive information on the number of adult day care facilities and services operating in each local authority area.

However, between 2022 and 2024, the Scottish Government carried out four surveys of adult day care services at a national level. The surveys were initially undertaken to establish the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic operating levels.

Two collections were undertaken in 2022 to capture service provision before and after the removal of social distancing measures. The figures provided for 2022 reflect the later of these two collections. Further surveys undertaken in 2023 and 2024 continued to monitor the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Adult day care services are typically commissioned through Health and Social Care Partnerships, and the information is reported on that basis.

The figures presented include only those services identified through survey returns as being open or open with reduced capacity. A figure of zero should not be interpreted as indicating that no adult day care facilities or services were operating in that area. In some cases, a zero may reflect a nil return, an incomplete return, or differences in local reporting rather than an absence of services.

The Scottish Government has committed to expanding childcare support to children from nine months through to the end of primary school over the course of this Parliament. We are at the early stages of developing our plans for expansion and, as this progresses, we will work with all parts of the childcare sector, parents, carers and children, to ensure that any expansion delivers a system which meets the needs of children and families across Scotland and supports a sustainable, resilient and high quality childcare sector. We will set out a detailed programme in due course, to enable Parliament and the public to monitor progress.

While we develop those plans, we are continuing to support families most in need, for example through our £15 million childcare support fund which helps with childcare costs, specifically targeting low-income households and families living in, or at risk of living in poverty. We are also continuing to invest £3 million in 2026-27 to fund breakfast clubs through the Bright Start Breakfasts Fund alongside an additional investment of £15 million to phase delivery of a national breakfast club offer from August 2027.

These measures, which we are putting in place now, will help to address the affordability and flexibility of childcare, helping families to manage costs and support participation in education and training, with wider benefits including supporting access to work.

In April 2026, new wildfire prevention byelaws came into force in the Cairngorms National Park to help address the increasing risk of wildfires.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving outcomes for people living with dementia, their families and carers through Dementia in Scotland: Everyone's Story, Scotland’s Dementia Strategy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-00174 on 5 June 2026. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-01438 on 20 July 2026. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to S7W-01438 on 20 July 2026. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-01172 on 10 July 2026. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-01172 on 10 July 2026. 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.