Chamber and committees

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend the age range.

Those aged between 18 – 25 years old continue to have access to the Patient Travel Expenses Scheme or the Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme, both of which provide eligible claimants with support to meet travel costs associated with outpatient appointments.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18 who are being treated in Scotland.

We recognise it is not possible to deliver all services and treatments in all locations. That is why, where patients are required to travel we already expect boards to take a patient centred approach and to have in place arrangements to allow and support people to receive treatment elsewhere. In addition, financial support for travel is available for patients and authorised escorts attending hospital appointments, in line with eligibility criteria and medical requirements.

We are committed to ensuring that alcohol treatment in Scotland is consistent and of high quality. We are supporting the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which has been leading on the development of new UK-wide clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment.

We expect the draft guidance to be published for consultation this year. We will work with our partners to ensure that it is suitable for Scotland and how the guidance could be implemented effectively and consistently across the country.

The forthcoming UK clinical guidelines will act as a platform to develop alcohol specific treatment targets. The intention would be that these would launch in 2024.

In its first year of operation, a total of £2,056,179 was paid out to Scotland’s 14 territorial Health Boards for the Young Patients Family Fund in 2021-22.

Scottish Government does not yet hold data on how many individual people have benefitted so far.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend eligibility for outpatient treatment.

We have published the Report of the independent review of the role of incineration in the waste hierarchy.

The Report is available at: http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781804353912/documents/

Dr Colin Church submitted his Report to Ministers on 13 April. Given the potential for the Report’s findings and recommendations to raise issues that could be of particular local interest, publication was deferred until after the local government elections.

We are considering Dr Church’s recommendations carefully and will respond to these in a statement to Parliament in June.

Given the important issues that the Review Report raises in relation to Scotland’s national capacity requirements for incineration, the temporary notification direction that was put in place during the review will remain in place until we determine our response to Dr Church’s recommendations. This notification direction requires local authorities to notify Scottish ministers when they receive, and when they intend to approve, a planning application for an incineration facility.

We are continuing to work with the BSI to finalise the membership and terms of reference for a new Scottish technical group to help achieve this. The membership of the group will include a representative who can highlight the needs and concerns of remote rural and island communities in Scotland. We expect the new group to identify and establish good practice for retrofitting traditional properties in more exposed locations, such as coastal and island communities.

The process of reaching out to potential members of the new group has been started and we expect the first meeting of the new group to take place during the Summer.

South of Scotland Enterprise advertised for four new Board members in Autumn 2021. Applicants were asked to demonstrate evidence of their skills, knowledge and experience in one of three areas: land based industries; governance/strategic management; or digital transformation.

The Scottish Government received 47 completed applications for the advertised vacancies. Of these, over a third (16 applicants) set out evidence under the ‘land-based industry’ criterion. However, it is possible that other applicants, who chose to set out evidence against one of the other criteria instead, may also have experience in land based industries.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) supports research grant schemes providing funding opportunities for applied research projects across the range of NHS, health and care challenges in Scotland. These are open to applications for research projects on long-COVID involving long-COVID patients that could include laboratory-based analyses. Applications to these schemes undergo independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees. CSO funded NHS Research Scotland infrastructure also provides support for research in this area including to recruit patients to the UK-wide Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study to understand and improve long-term health outcomes for patients who have been in hospital with COVID-19.

Through the Women’s Health Plan, we are committed to improving support and care for people experiencing perimenopause symptoms.

A menopause platform has launched on NHS Inform to ensure women have access to information on menopause, including the signs and symptoms of perimenopause. One of the key actions in the Women’s Health Plan is to launch a public health campaign in order to raise awareness of the symptoms of menopause.

We want all women to have timely access to menopause support and services. For those who need specialist support, there is now a specialist menopause service in every mainland NHS Board and support in place for the Island health boards.

A Menopause Specialists Network meets regularly to provide consistent advice and peer support to health care professionals, including primary care teams.

We know that many women will seek support from their local GP practice for their perimenopause symptoms. To support primary care, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is developing menopause training for healthcare professionals, including Practice Nurses and GPs.

A Women’s Health Lived Experience Group has been established by Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to ensure we continue to engage with women across Scotland on menopause and other areas of Women’s Health.