Chamber and committees

The Scottish Stroke Care Standards can be found here: ( https://www.strokeaudit.scot.nhs.uk/index.html ). The current standard relating to brain imaging already sets out that 90% of patients should receive this within 12 hours of arrival at first hospital, unless there is a documented contraindication.

The Scottish Stroke Care Standards are regularly reviewed in line with current evidence and updated guidelines. We monitor the implementation of these standards through the Scottish Stroke Care Audit to ensure that stroke patients in Scotland are receiving high quality care.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with COSLA on air quality matters. However there have been no recent discussions on the specific issue of local authority powers to tackle vehicle idling, as the authorities themselves are best placed to make decisions on implementation.

Further to the answer to question S6W-04701 I can confirm that the case review was undertaken by a small number of NHS Lothian clinicians who are all suitably qualified and experienced in their relevant fields. As none of the clinicians who undertook the review had previously looked after Mr Slorance there was no conflict of interest in undertaking the review.

The Scottish Government considers a range of data to support policy development. Current data on how Scotland compares to the rest of the UK is considered in the weekly state of the epidemic paper, available on the Scottish Government website. This report ( Coronavirus (COVID-19): state of the epidemic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ) brings together the different sources of evidence and data about the COVID epidemic to summarise the current situation, and incorporates data from the UK COVID Dashboard on cases, hospital occupancy and deaths across the four nations. The Scottish Government also refers to the latest data for the four nations from the ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey, which includes estimates of positivity, estimates of the number of people testing positive for antibodies to COVID and long COVID, and has done since the first results were published for Scotland in October 2020.

The evidence and data which informs the Scottish Government is drawn from academic institutions based across the UK which inform SAGE (including via its sub-groups), the UK Health Security Agency and scientific literature from across the world. SAGE includes experts from within government and leading specialists from the fields of healthcare and academia. During the response to the COVID-19 pandemic the SAGE sub groups include:

• New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)
• Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M)
• Independent Scientific Pandemic insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B)
• COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK)
• Health Data Research UK (HDR UK)

The Heart Disease Action Plan 2021, sets out a strategic vision to address the impact of heart disease across Scotland. This means that the plan does not provide detailed information on specific conditions but instead identifies four priority areas. These are 1) tackling risk factors, 2) ensuring timely and equitable access to diagnosis, treatment and care, 3) addressing key issues within the cardiac workforce, and 4) ensuring effective use of data to support improvement.

The actions within these priority areas should impact across a number of cardiac conditions and therefore improve services for everyone with heart disease, including for people living with heart valve disease.

The National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 defines the conditions which the Scottish Ministers must be satisfied or may be satisfied before an area may be proposed for designation as a National park. Under Section 2(2) of the Act the Conditions are:

a. that the area is of outstanding national importance because of its natural heritage or the combination of its natural and cultural heritage,

b. that the area has a distinctive character and a coherent identity, and

c. that designating the area as a National Park would meet the special needs of the area and would be the best means of ensuring that the National Park aims are collectively achieved in relation to the area in a co-ordinated way.

The Scottish Government's Heat in Buildings Strategy has committed to phasing out the need to install new or replacement fossil fuel boilers, in off-gas grid homes from 2025 and in on-gas grid homes 2030, with consideration of additional trigger points and subject to technological developments and decisions by the UK Government in reserved areas.

The Scottish Government will consult further on these proposals during 2022.

The Scottish Government and NHS recognise the importance of ensuring cervical screening is accessible. Every sample taker is therefore required to undertake training provided by NHS Education for Scotland, and guidance is provided to account for each screening participants needs. This guidance includes making the appropriate adjustments, including those required for disabled women, to ensure that samples can be taken from all eligible women invited for screening. As part of our on-going commitment to providing the best service, in the coming months, the screening programme will explore additional steps to improve the experience for disabled women.

We recognise that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on our NHS including diabetes services. We took the opportunity to reflect on these challenges as we determined the priorities for our Diabetes Improvement Plan refresh, which was published in February 2021.

On 25 August 2021 we launched our NHS Recovery Plan which is backed by more than £1bn of investment over the next five years. The plan takes forward our aim of increasing NHS capacity by at least 10% as quickly as possible in order to address the backlog of care and meet the ongoing healthcare needs for people across the country.

People applying for a Young Persons Free Bus Travel National Entitlement Card (NEC) card are asked to provide 'proof of person' (the young person's name and age) and proof of residence (where the young person lives). For those aged 11 and over a digital photograph is required.

Young people aged 16 and over apply for the new NEC card themselves, whilst parents or guardians apply on behalf of children aged 5-15.

Full details of the acceptable proofs for the Young Persons Free Bus Travel Scheme are listed on the NEC website at Proofs | National Entitlement Card (nec.scot).