Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government published a new national Specification for Psychological Therapies (PT) and Interventions on 29 September 2023. This follows a two-year period of development working closely with partners, including the workforce, and other key stakeholders.

We have worked in collaboration with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to revise the waiting reporting guidance for PT and PHS have re-issued the Waiting Times data definitions guidance document which will help to improve accuracy of reporting against the PT waiting times standard. This applies to the delivery of PT as set out in the new Specification. The updated guidance document will be fully operational by 1 April 2024.

Scottish Government officials and Professional Advisors will continue to support NHS Boards to improve reporting of PT waiting times through the established engagement processes. We will work with data analysts and PHS to ensure improved information reporting is carried out consistently across Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises that evidence is important in supporting policy design, monitoring progress and evaluation of impact. Our refreshed Tobacco Action Plan will be published in Autumn this year and is based on a wide range of evidence. This has included and will continue to include input from Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government Analysts. In addition, evidence requirements will continue to be considered and updated as plans around refreshed tobacco actions progress. Further detail on evidence will be published later this year.

Current PHS analysis on smoking attributable deaths and smoking attributable admissions can be found on the PHS website - Smoking attributable deaths - ScotPHO and Smoking attributable admissions - ScotPHO

No Transport Scotland or Scottish Government payments to Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP have been identified for consultancy work on the (a) design and (b) tender of the (i) Northern Isles Ferry Service passenger specifications, (ii) Northern Isles Ferry Services freight specifications and (iii) Gourock to Dunoon contracts.

Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland provides census data on numbers of registrations for funded early learning and childcare (ELC) at the local authority level as of September 2022. These figures are shown in the following table. The census does not currently record the number of hours being accessed by each child.

Between April 2009 and March 2023 a total of 14 schools were built in Aberdeen and 399 across Scotland. Prior to 2009 the school estate data made no distinction between newly built and substantially refurbished schools - between 2007 and 2009 one school in Aberdeen and 199 across Scotland were either built or substantially refurbished.

The Scottish and UK Governments will seek to agree a rigorous monitoring and evaluation framework for Scotland’s Investment Zones, working closely with Regional Economic Partners and drawing on external expertise to agree reporting arrangements. Through this continued collaborative working approach with regional partners, we aim to develop proposals with distinct sectoral focus to maximise cluster building, innovation and economic growth, whilst reducing the risk of any potential displacement effects.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Prison to Rehab pathway was established in the summer of 2020 to support individuals into residential rehabilitation services during the unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We conducted an internal review of the pathway in 2021-2022 which was complimented by an evaluation from one of our commissioned third sector organisations, the Scottish Recovery Consortium. The published evaluation can be viewed here . The review and the evaluation informed a new version of the Prison to Rehab protocol to ensure it continued to be fit for purpose. This was published in March 2023 and can be viewed here here .

We committed in our Integrated Health and Social Care Workforce Plan (December 2019) to create 225 more Advanced Musculo-Skeletal Practitioners in Primary Care.

This is to support the embedding of multi-disciplinary teams in primary care settings and enable people to be seen by a specialist physiotherapist at the very earliest opportunity.

A total of 37 students were recruited in 2021-22, and a further 52 were recruited in 2022-23. It is anticipated that 50 students will be recruited in each of the next 2 academic years, meaning we are on track for meeting this commitment by 2025-26.

The first cohort of students will graduate in September 2023 and a number will be located in NHS Ayrshire and Arran.

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for the government – alongside our focus on the economy and strengthening public services. We recognise that families with a child under the age of one are more likely to live in poverty and, as set out in Best Start, Bright Futures, our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, are taking forward a range of action to help.

We have already significantly strengthened support through devolved social security. The Scottish Child Payment is worth £25 per eligible child per week with 316,000 children benefiting as of 30 June 2023. Programme for Government 2023-24 commits to further increasing the value of the Scottish Child Payment in line with inflation next year and to introducing regulations that remove income thresholds from Best Start Foods from February 2024, supporting an additional 20,000 people.

In addition we have delivered over a quarter of a million Baby Boxes to expectant parents – providing them with more than £400 worth of essential items for their newborn – and are committed to investing £500 million in Whole Family Wellbeing to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time.

Over 11,000 families have benefited from the Family Nurse Partnership since it began in 2010 and we have committed to further expansion over the next two years to reach more young mothers and fathers.

We have also implemented the Universal Health Visitor Pathway across Scotland, to ensure that all families get a minimum of 11 home visits – eight in the first year of life and three child health reviews up to age 5 – and we are supporting health visitors to have more meaningful conversations around financial inclusion through piloting dedicated training to increase their skills and confidence in discussing money worries and provide related guidance.

Between 2019 and 2023, we have invested £26 million in the development of perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland.

Additionally, we have led work in Scotland to raise awareness of the unique nutritional needs of infants, and engaged a wide range of stakeholders to take action to develop Emergency pathways on Infant Food Insecurity, integrated into wider, locally directed and holistic income maximisation and food insecurity supports.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to invest in primary prevention from pre-birth through the earliest years and have set out ambitious plans to expand access to funded childcare for 13,000 more children and families by the end of this Parliament

It is estimated that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government’s policies, with poverty levels 9% points lower that they would have otherwise been. This includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of relative poverty through our Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and budget in order to tackle and reduce child poverty, including for families with a child under the age of one.

Waiting times for medical procedures that require anaesthetic are monitored by new outpatient national standards and the Treatment Time Guarantee for inpatient and day-case.

Over 2.8 million inpatients and day cases have benefited from the 12-weeks treatment target since it was introduced – with 81.7% of these being seen within 12 weeks. Further information about waiting times can be found on the PHS website.

Every person recovers differently and how quickly someone can return to work depends on a number of things, including the type of surgery and the type of work they do. The surgeon will advise how long it's likely to take to recover.