Chamber and committees

Information on the number of patients within NHS Scotland who were waiting for diagnostic procedures as of 31 March can be found here:

NHS waiting times - diagnostics - Quarter ending 31 March 2021 - NHS waiting times - diagnostics - Publications - Public Health Scotland

The information shows the number of patients waiting for diagnostic procedures up to 31 March 2021. Diagnostic treatment at 1 July 2021 will be published by PHS on 24 August 2021 and can be found using the same link.

Enforcement of the Coronavirus Regulations is a matter for the Chief Constable and Police Scotland.

The latest data available on Police Scotland’s website Enforcement and Response Data - Police Scotland shows that as of 14 July 2021, 16,993 fixed-penalty notices have been issued and 971 arrests have been made under these regulations.

The published figures are not broken down to show the reasons for issuing of fixed-penalty notices or arrests; the presentation and format of Police Scotland data, is an operational matter for the Chief Constable.

The current national waiting times statistics for CAMHS and Psychological Therapies do not provide a breakdown of who is waiting for specific types of treatment. Therefore, we are unable to report on specific waits for suicide prevention treatments.

A patient level data set (CAMHS and PT National Dataset) is currently under development by PHS which will provide more detail on the diagnosis and treatments received by individuals, and associated waiting times.

It is the responsibility of individual health boards to provide high quality care that is safe, effective and person-centred. If a child or young person presents as being at real and immediate risk of harm to themselves, to others, health Boards should see these people as urgent cases and prioritise seeing them regardless of where they are on a waiting list.

The Scottish Breast Screening Programme invites women between the ages of 50 and 70 for routine breast screening every three years. This is in line with advice from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which is an independent scientific body that advises all four nations of the UK on screening matters. The Scottish government will only act to widen screening age ranges if this is recommended by the UK NSC.

I will shortly be writing to the UK NSC to ask them to examine the merits of lowering the current age thresholds for screening programmes. I recognise in doing so that any change to age ranges for screening must be based on the highest standards of evidence, and balance both potential harms and benefits.

The breast screening programme is governed by the Breast Screening Programme Board as well as the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Screening Committee. They monitor and evaluate performance, including uptake rates, against a set of standards developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

Since the breast screening programme restarted last summer, additional steps have been taken to ensure uptake of appointments despite the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic. These include:

• breast screening centres contacting participants ahead of their appointments to confirm their intention to attend;
• providing information to reassure people that infection control measures are in place and, during lockdown, that attending a screening appointment was considered essential travel; and
• clearly communicating the importance of screening, along with tailored messaging to recognise additional concerns and challenges caused by the pandemic, for example for people who were shielding.

The Scottish Government recognises that the Covid-19 pandemic may have exacerbated inequalities in screening uptake across all national screening programmes, and we have committed £2 million over the next two years, to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way.

The Scottish Government has worked closely with Glasgow City Council on operational plans for Fan Zone to ensure public safety. While clinical advice has cautioned against mandatory testing and checking on arrival, which may impact attendee flow and risk increased mixing, attendees are encouraged to test before and after the event, with test kits posted out to ticket holders.

Based on available data, the number of cases associated with the Fan Zone was particularly low.

Testing alone will not stop Covid transmission, this is why it is used as part of a package of measures to reduce risks. We will continue to encourage people to test before and after all future events and will consider whether this merits further exploration for future similar events.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01507 on
‎ 30 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

The Scottish Government only collects school pupil attendance and absence information every 2 years, so no data is available for 2017-18.

Information for 2018/19 shows that for term 3 (covering the period roughly April-June) the combined authorised and unauthorised absence rate was 7.6%.

In 2019-20, schools/hubs were only open to the children and young people of keyworkers, and those who were vulnerable, in the period April to June 2020.(due to the Covid pandemic). Therefore, most children and young people were not to attend school during this period. As such, at its highest, only around 1.7% of all pupils were attending these schools/hubs at any given time during this period.

For 2020-21, for the period in question (i.e. April to June 2021), the combined rate for pupils not in school due to Covid-19 related reasons and Non-Covid-19 related reasons was 10.4%. Note that this data has been produced on a slightly different basis to the biennial National Statistics publication. For example, some pupils who are currently counted as 'not being in school' may in fact be recorded as being in attendance (e.g. pupils who were self-isolating but were able to learn from home)when the Scottish Government publishes its usual National Statistics publication on School Attendance and Absence 2020/21 which is due later this year.

Care should be made if attempting to compare results across academic years due to varying ways in how this data was gathered over the most recent academic years, together with variation in the levels of quality assurance being undertaken on the data gathered.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or by Public Health Scotland.

Information relating to the number of patients awaiting a colposcopy and their length of wait would be held by individual Health Boards.

A new Early Cancer Diagnosis Programme Board has been formed – this group will be responsible for shaping and supporting the delivery of Scotland’s early cancer diagnosis efforts over the coming years. The exploration of any future public awareness campaigns will be considered here and will be undertaken with close consultation from the Scottish Cancer Coalition, which includes third sector ovarian cancer representation.

The Scottish Government is committed to finding cancer early when the chance of survival and even cure is higher – this is reflected in our £44 million Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme.

September marks Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month - DCE’s social media channels will help raise awareness of common signs and symptoms, signposting to an online interactive ‘symptom checker’ tool.