Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government funds health and care research through the Chief Scientist Office. We are not currently funding any inflammatory breast cancer clinical trials.

Researchers can apply directly to the Chief Scientist Office for funding. The CSO’s Translational Clinical Studies Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committee each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website and the role of these committees is well-known across the health and care research community in Scotland

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

Applications to the CSO funding committees on the underlying causes, diagnosis, treatment and management of Inflammatory Breast Cancer are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through the CSO’s standard independent peer review process to enable funding decisions to be made.

The latest statistics on average number of available, staffed hospital beds, including for acute specialties, is published in ‘Table 4 - beds.xlsx’ within Public Health Scotland’s annual acute hospital activity and NHS beds publication (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ ).

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. The Scottish Government has committed to publishing further information on the recruitment of Staff to the National Treatment Centres, as part of the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics, from 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

The Scottish Government is committed to the recruitment of a minimum of 1,500 additional clinical and non-clinical staff to support the operation of Scotland’s National Treatment Centres (NTCs).

NTC recruitment is the responsibility of NHS Boards. It is therefore for each of the NTC Host Boards to provide detail regarding their recruitment plans and progress.

The Scottish Government however has committed to publishing further information on the recruitment of staff to the NTCs as part of the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics, from 2023.

The priority benchmark descriptors in the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme have been used consistently since 2019.

Moving forwards, we are now developing new criteria in line with recommendations made in the Progressive Stroke Pathway and upcoming refreshed Stroke Improvement Plan. These will be reported on in the next annual Stroke Improvement Programme Report, published in 2023.

The Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) has engaged collaboration from clinical staff across Scotland to draft a National Clinical Management Pathway for all breast cancer patients, to achieve consistent care across Scotland. The CMP is currently in draft and out for consultation and is expected to be launched in 2023.

The Scottish Cancer Network is hosted by NHS National Services Scotland. The Network is a dedicated national resource to support and facilitate a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach to cancer services which will assist in enabling equitable access to care and treatment across Scotland.

There is no mechanism for increasing the frequency of benefit payments. We have set payment cycles already in operation. Any new payment cycles would not be recommended as they would be complex to implement and have detrimental impact on operational services.

As announced by myself on 4 October 2022, more than £600 million of funding is provided through the 2022-23 budget to support a range of measures to support the Health & Social Care system through the winter period. This builds on £1 billion of investment already announced in the earlier 2021-26 NHS recovery plan, and includes £550 million of additional funding and the continuation of the £50 million of Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative from the recovery plan.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11467 on 8 November 2022. 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

The following table shows how many pupils are in each of the named local authorities (taken from the most recent pupil census data from 2021) and how many devices have been distributed by these local authorities, using £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21. In total, this funding supported the provision of 14,000 internet connections and 72,000 devices for learners across all local authorities.