Chamber and committees

As the First Minister recently announced, the Fuel Insecurity Fund’s budget for 2023/24 has increased from £20 million to £30 million. The Fund has been allocated as follows:

• £9 million to enable Advice Direct Scotland to administer Home Heating Support Fund grants to those struggling with the rapid increase in gas, electricity and oil prices;
• £8.5 million for the Fuel Bank Foundation to rapidly support more than 85,000 households, including those with prepayment meters and at risk of imminent self-disconnection;
• £7.25 million to enable the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations to provide more than 55,000 households across Scotland with advice, support with bills and energy-saving items;
• £5 million for one-to-one mentoring for households to be provided by a new funding partner, The Wise Group, as part of a longer-term approach to tackling poverty and its causes;£250,000 for Energy Action Scotland to support both an uplift to their core staff costs and opportunity for expanded roles to aid our longer-term approach to tackling fuel poverty.

Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (HEPMA) has been rolled out in in seven Health boards including NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Lothian and The State Hospital.

The six North of Scotland Boards have worked collaboratively together to develop a regional HEPMA and have implemented capability for the region. NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Tayside and NHS Orkney have gone live and are now planning for a wider roll out across each of their estate. Both NHS Shetland and NHS Western Isles are finalising preparations for go live in the coming weeks.

Work is underway to rollout HEPMA systems in the remaining Health Boards of NHS Borders, NHS Fife and the Golden Jubilee National Hospital. We expect these implementations to begin in 2024.

Governance of the veterinary profession is a Reserved Matter and the number of registered veterinary surgeons in the UK is available from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

On behalf of the Scottish Government, the Chief Veterinary Officer Scotland chairs the veterinary delivery landscape forum, a cross-sector group that examines recruitment and retention of veterinary surgeons in Scotland.

The Scottish Government also supports the provision of veterinary services in the rural and remote rural areas of Scotland through the Highlands and Islands Veterinary Services Scheme. The Scheme ensures the provision of an adequate veterinary service to detect, prevent and eradicate animal diseases for all animals kept for agricultural purposes and belonging to crofters and others of like economic status.

All Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s resources are reviewed regularly by the clinical team supporting HIS. The high risk medicines framework has been reviewed and has been identified as a useful resource for teams to use within their local settings. These are live resources and the Scottish Patient Safety Programme team welcomes feedback or suggestions for further developments.

Officials and Ministers are in regular contact with business, including some of the biggest producers, and sector organisations in relation the delivery of the Deposit Return Scheme. The lack of clarity around an Internal Market Act exclusion has regularly been raised at these meetings and causes uncertainty and inhibits planning and preparation.

As Circularity Scotland is a private company, any compensation to businesses they have arrangements with is a matter for them and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to intervene in such commercial arrangements between private companies.

The Scottish Government is currently preparing the first national Good Food Nation Plan, as required by the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022.

The national Good Food Nation Plan will set out the main outcomes in relation to food-related issues that we wish to see achieved in Scotland; the indicators or other measures by which progress towards the outcomes can be assessed; and the policies we will pursue in order to secure those outcomes. The Plan must be prepared with regard to the scope for food-related issues to affect outcomes in relation to, among other things, health and physical and mental wellbeing, and the environment. It must also have regard to the principle that high quality, nutritious and culturally appropriate food has the ability to improve the health and physical and mental wellbeing of people, and to the role of a sustainable food system and supply chain in contributing to mitigation of climate change, halting and reversing of loss of biodiversity and improvement in animal welfare.

The national Good Food Nation Plan offers us an opportunity to take a fresh approach to food policy in Scotland, and to consider all aspects of the food system.

The Bus Taskforce was convened by the previous Minister for Transport to work on critical issues with bus stakeholders. It is reviewing and coordinating immediate activity to support patronage recovery, to address workforce retention and recruitment, and to ensure proactive communication and engagement with bus users as networks adapt post Covid. The work is expected to conclude in the coming months and a report of the Taskforce's work and recommendations will be published in Autumn 2023.

Human activities have had a considerable impact in Scotland’s seas. Of the 21 marine regions reported in the Scottish Marine Assessment 2020 , where physical disturbance was assessed, 18 were predicted to have more than 15% of their area classified as highly disturbed and are considered to be in “poor condition”.

Our proposals to introduce Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) are intended to contribute to addressing this situation and improving the state of our sea bed across Scotland’s seas. However, enhanced marine protection is about more than tackling biodiversity loss and climate change – it is also about delivering societal benefits which must include benefits for coastal and island communities.

We are proposing that HPMAs protect ecosystems and the services they provide, including essential fish and shellfish habitats, which will deliver societal benefits, including for island and coastal communities. By being properly designed and located we believe these areas would provide long term and sustainable benefits for island and coastal communities.

Scientific studies indicate that fish stocks can increase in HPMAs, providing spill over benefits for fishers and making sure there are sustainable levels of fish and other marine products to be derived and benefitted from our seas. For example, a study by Lenihan et al in California has shown spill over benefits with increased stocks of spiny lobster.

We have conducted a range of initial impact assessments, including an initial Sustainability Appraisal (composed of a Strategic Environmental Report and a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment); a partial Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) Screening Report; and a partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA). We sought views on these as part of our initial consultation, which closed on 17 April. However, as was noted in the consultation, any specific potential impacts can only be considered in full once specific site proposals have been developed, following close stakeholder and community engagement.

Reducing harm due to high-risk medicines has been identified as a priority by health boards across Scotland and the Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) has focussed on supporting teams to discuss and prioritise improvement activities related to high-risk medicines and high-risk situations around medicines.

The SPSP programme within HIS has developed a number of tools and resources which are publicly available via the Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) website. These resources include the Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAID) Safer Care Bundle, NSAID Communication Care Bundle, Medicines Sick Day Rule Cards, High Risk Medicines Framework and the High Risk Medicines Discussion Framework. All resources available on the HIS website are reviewed by the clinical team supporting HIS to ensure they remain up to date and beneficial, and are available for staff to use within their local settings.