Chamber and committees

The Civil Service Code of Conduct (Scottish Government & Agencies 2010) clarifies that civil servants are responsible for keeping accurate official records relating to decisions and key conversations. These responsibilities are discharged through the relevant business unit, with chairpersons and secretariats having responsibility for capturing key decisions or actions in the minutes of meetings and ensuring these are saved as part of the corporate record.

The £3 million funding was part of the emergency COVID-19 support for culture, protecting jobs and addressing some of the financial pressures facing the three organisations. It was announced on 17 January 2021, comprising £1.4 million for Aberdeen Performing Arts, £800,000 for Eden Court Highlands and £800,000 for Capital Theatres. Funding is being delivered through Creative Scotland. The funding agreements with the three organisations require that the funds must be used in addressing the problems linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in order to enable the organisations to be financially stable in order to develop and present cultural activity when restrictions allow. Later in 2021 Creative Scotland will require the organisations to provide information on the use of funding, including how they have spent it, whether it has allowed them to maintain their workforce and stabilised their financial position.

The Scottish Government has no plans at this time to amend the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 in order to limit peat extraction for those with valid planning permission. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 does however include a requirement for the Scottish Ministers to have regard to the desirability of preserving peatland when preparing the fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4). The Scottish Government’s NPF4 Position Statement (Published November 2020) outlines an intention to rebalance the planning system so that climate change is a guiding principle for all plans and decisions, and states that the Scottish Government will aim to restrict commercial peat extraction for horticulture purposes.

Our approach is for people to have access to the support they may need for assessment, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation in a setting that is as close to their home as possible. This is being supported through local primary care teams, community based rehabilitation services and secondary care investigation where needed.

NHS Boards, including our Island Boards are developing pathways according to local services and the needs of their respective populations, to support people with long COVID. We continue to engage with Boards to identify their support needs in relation to delivering care and support to people with long COVID.

In addition, we have invested over £460,000 in Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland to enable them to deliver their ‘Long COVID support service’ which complements the support being provided by NHS Scotland.

Anyone who has received either their first or second dose of the vaccine in Scotland can access a physical copy of their record of vaccination. They can request their record for the dose received in Scotland via the helpline on 0808 196 8565 or the website www.nhsinform.scot/covid19status . We are working at pace to align vaccination records from different nations of the UK.

There are no plans to undertake a metastatic breast cancer audit. Officials continue to closely monitor all patients referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer in NHS Scotland to ensure they are seen and treated as timely as possible.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01559 on
‎ 24 August 2021. 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

Data published by Public Health Scotland shows that at 31 March 2021, the number of patients waiting for treatment as an inpatient or day case was 94,781. The number of patients waiting over 12 weeks at 31 March 2021 was 61,901 (65.3%).

Further breakdown of this data can be accessed on page 28 of the full report at NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Quarter ending 31 March 2021 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland

Data showing the number of patients waiting to be admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case at 30 June 2021 will be published by Public Health Scotland on 24 August 2021.

At present, we only collect Detect Cancer Early data for breast, colorectal and lung cancers. Information on patients diagnosed with breast, colorectal or lung cancer during the two-year period 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019 by cancer stage is available in the Detect Cancer Early Staging publication at

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/detect-cancer-early-staging-data/detect-cancer-early-staging-data-year-8-1-january-2018-to-31-december-2019/

Information for the two-year period 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2020 is due to be released on 19 October 2021. This information will be broken down by quarter.

Public Health Scotland are currently developing a dashboard to include provisional monthly and quarterly data for 2020 compared with both 2019 and the average of 2017-2019 for the three cancer sites (breast, colorectal and lung). It is expected that this will be released over August as part of the Covid-19 wider impacts dashboard .

Causes of death are categorised using the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10 th Revision (ICD-10). A link to this classification is available here:CD-10 Version:2019 (who.int)

Influenza and pneumonia fall under chapter X “Diseases of the respiratory system” in ICD-10 rather than chapter I “Certain infectious and parasitic diseases”. Deaths from ‘Diseases of the respiratory system’ are shown in the following table .

For a full breakdown of all causes of death categorised within ICD-10, please refer to chapter 6 of the Vital Events Reference Tables published by National Records of Scotland.

List of Data Tables | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk)

Table 1. Deaths from diseases of the respiratory system