The National Elective Coordination Unit (NECU) does not directly remove patients from NHS health board waiting lists. As part of the agreed pathway to support national waiting list validation, and to ensure a patient’s appointment requirements are accurately recorded, NECU’s digitally supported waiting list validation methodology collates the information provided by patients, before returning it to the NHS Board of residence for update within patient administration systems.

To ensure any removals from waiting lists are appropriate, the NECU system records patient responses and their reason for removal. NECU follow-up directly with all patients who have not responded or have not left a comment explaining why they wish to be removed. Similarly, for patients who are unsure of the nature of their appointment, NECU follow-up with the patient directly. Where there is a clinical query from the patient, this is highlighted and the clinical team within the NHS Board of residence are asked to follow-up with the patient. To action a removal, Health Boards review both the patient response and the comment to ensure the reason for removal is appropriate.

Throughout the waiting list validation activity, patients remain on their respective waiting list until the NHS Board agrees it is appropriate to remove the patient.

NECU’s validation process is digitally supported, however, it is not a digital only process. Although all patients are contacted by text message and invited to access a patient portal to record their response, patients who may be unable to access the digital platform are followed-up by the NECU patient coordination team by telephone. If the patient is unable to be reached by both text message and telephone, a recommendation is returned to the NHS Board of residence to send a letter to the patient asking them to contact their Health Board directly. No amendment to the patient’s waiting list entry is actioned until confirmation is received from the patient.

NECU will publish its first annual update in October 2023.

Waiting List Validation is not new. Local Health Boards routinely validate patients on waiting lists to ensure patient requirements are correctly recorded. The establishment of a national approach is based on existing principles. By adopting these principles, a patient would not be removed from a waiting list without contact either by text or phone call, and if required, a clinical consultation.

After a consultation, it may be agreed no treatment is required at the time of referral. However, if the clinical team believe that a further referral for the same condition is likely in the future, or if it is felt that treatment will be required but the patient is not quite ready for this, or if the patient wishes to defer a decision on treatment, the patient will have the ability to make an appointment for the same condition at a future time.

The Scottish Government hopes to publish a draft Bioenergy Policy Statement for consultation by the end of 2023.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring everyone who is eligible to vote can do so and is working with partners to look at potential new ways to increase registration levels amongst under-represented groups including young people and foreign nationals.

The Scottish Government is considering responses to our recent consultation on electoral reform, including on how to improve registration levels, and I intend to meet with the Head of the Electoral Commission in Scotland to discuss the report and its recommendations in greater detail.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21623 on‎ 29 September 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

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.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to helping the Scottish hydrogen sector develop.

The Hydrogen Action Plan, published in December 2022, confirmed that the Scottish Government will support the emerging hydrogen sector through a programme of capital funding, designed to accelerate and maximise the production of renewable hydrogen in Scotland.

The first tranche of our hydrogen investment programme, the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme was launched in 2022 to support research and innovation in hydrogen production, storage, and distribution. In May, the First Minister announced that over £7m in grants had been offered to 32 projects. Details of these projects are published on the Scottish Government website: Emerging Energy Technologies Fund - Hydrogen Innovation Scheme: successful projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . All grants are paid in arrears, and will be awarded on successful completion of key project milestones.

The next tranche of the hydrogen investment programme, the up to £90m Green Hydrogen Fund, will launch later in 2023. This fund will focus on supporting renewable hydrogen production from Scotland’s abundant renewable energy resources, seeking to give Scotland first-mover advantage.

Our investment is aimed at driving Scotland’s hydrogen production capability to meet an ambition of at least 5GW of renewable and low carbon hydrogen by 2030 and 25GW by 2045.

The response to question S6W-21286, answered on 13 September 2023, notes that as a result of the devolved settlement and the Scottish Government’s powers, along with the interaction with reserved tax and benefits, it is not possible to deliver the Parental Transition Fund as originally envisaged.

As set out in the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the current financial situation facing the Scottish Government is amongst the most challenging since devolution. Tough and decisive action must be taken to ensure the sustainability of public finance, whilst also strengthening the immediate support available for households impacted by the cost of living crisis. On this basis, the £5 million made available for the Parental Transition Fund in 2023-24 has been reallocated to help meet the previously announced increased investment in the Fuel Insecurity Fund to address the need for immediate help with fuel costs and to support the Scottish Government’s path to balance.

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 .

There are 41 active working groups that fall under the remit of the Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy portfolio.

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.

Quality improvement methodology is being embedded across Scotland through the implementation of the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards.

The MAT Standards Implementation Support Team (MIST), based within Public Health Scotland, was set up to support local areas to build improvement-based capacity and capability so that they will be able to implement and sustain the MAT standards locally.

MIST helps local areas with quality improvement work which has focused on establishing that local areas have written procedures in place, have numerical information and data available and have a means in place to gather experiential data. All of which are required to help drive improvement.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is also supporting local areas and works closely with MIST in providing practical quality improvement assistance and advice to local areas.

HIS will shortly begin delivery of its full quality improvement assistance to local areas to build on the first phase of quality improvement work MIST has undertaken. HIS also provides close links between its other relevant workstreams on residential rehabilitation, prison healthcare and mental health and addictions services.