Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland (PHS) data is provided below on numbers of patients receiving abortion treatment in a Health Board other than their Board of residence.

It is not possible to distinguish how many patients had to receive treatment in another Health Board or how many chose to do so.

Number of terminations where Board of treatment is different from Board of residence, Scotland, 2019 to 2022.

Information on how many hospital pharmacists have been employed in each NHS board area in each year since 2012, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot .

Data is not held from before 2012. The following figures include all pharmacists working in any territorial board, in Acute, Mental Health, or in a Community Hospital setting. It excludes ‘central staff’ since some of these were employed in primary care, but includes Golden Jubilee National Hospital and National Waiting Times Centre staff. Figures provided are head count.

The Scottish Government has engaged extensively with stakeholders to ensure as wide a range of views as possible were taken into consideration during the development of the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill. While there has been no engagement between Ministers and their counterparts across the United Kingdom, there has been regular contact at official level.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

On 09 October 2023, there were 36 cells, containing two or more individuals across the prison estate, which had a living space of less than 7m²: 1 cell at HMP Dumfries and 35 cells at HMP Edinburgh.

We continue to monitor the impact and effectiveness of the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF) and keep this under review.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The total cost for providing prisoners with mobile phones since the roll out in June 2020 and the end of the provision in July 2023 has been £5.972m. These figures include all costs associated with usage, running costs and mobile handsets purchased, as well as the capital implementation spend.

Introduced during the COVID-19 global pandemic, prison issue mobile phones provided those in our care with the ability to maintain contact with family and friends during an extremely difficult and challenging period.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table shows the number of breaches where an authorised mobile telephone was used in the prison setting up to and including 31 July 2023, when the provision was withdrawn:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Prison issue mobile telephones for use by those in our care, were withdrawn from use on 31 July 2023.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with categorised responders, who are responsible under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for assessing the risk of an emergency occurring, maintaining plans to ensure they can continue to perform their functions in case of an emergency, and considering whether an assessment makes it necessary or expedient to add or modify plans. Scottish Government are not however responsible for, or the owners of, any of these plans.

In relation to door-to-door welfare checks specifically, our follow-up report on Storm Arwen in October 2022 confirmed that “The capability to deliver this type of large-scale response relies on a number of the issues, for example swift activation of resilience arrangements, the ability to quickly assess the impact on the ground, strong mutual aid arrangements and links to community and voluntary groups, and agile public communications plans. Resilience partnerships are however also aware that deploying a large number of people to travel on foot to carry out door-to-door checks could itself create a risk for those involved, for example if the weather conditions remain challenging. As such, these checks should always be considered as part of a range of ‘care for people’ considerations and measures which are rolled out in response to any major incident, which might also for example include the provision of rest centres.”

The Scottish Government is also supporting partners in the development of the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) resource which enables the swift identification of, and support to, those most at risk during an incident.

The Scottish Government, via its Ready Scotland digital channels, runs a year-long communications campaign with a specific focus on severe weather.