Chamber and committees

Funding for Community Eyecare (formerly General Ophthalmic Services) is published annually in the Scottish Budget and supports the expansion of community optometry services. Figures for the last five years, including annual movements are summarised in the following table.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

The process is ongoing and I will update Parliament when a significant development has been made.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport operates on a commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government and Ministers do not intervene in operational matters.

Scottish Government implements a number of measures to support rural NHS Boards’ digital infrastructure. These include:

• The Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN)
• A Strategic Digital Fund -For a number of years the Scottish Government has provided additional non-recurring funding to support local strategic digital developments, with a particular emphasis on ensuring continued funding for Highlands and Islands Boards to protect rural services
• Access to the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment platform - a standardised management tool for digital transformation. This platform enables NHS Boards to document progress, analyse results, identify priorities, and align with local and national digital and data strategies.
• Recent analysis of data from the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment shows both progress in electronic records management and areas for development at organisational and system wide level.
• The Scottish Government and COSLA have also developed a range of resources to increase the digital capabilities of the leadership and workforce thereby improving the ability to identify digital transformation opportunities and implementation.
• A Records Management Code of Practice was published in August 2024.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards to provide maternity services that are delivered as close to home as practicable and to offer a full range of birth place options within their region. Service planning and delivery is the responsibility of NHS Boards and it is important that these services are safe, sustainable and meet the needs of local populations.

At a national level, we continue to take forward work to address the challenges faced by maternity services in rural and island NHS Board areas. We are improving the delivery of maternity services in rural areas through initiatives such as implementation of The Best Start and the introduction of continuity of carer; the development of community hubs, and the increased use of Near Me, that allows for remote consultations and appointments where appropriate. We particularly recognise the importance of patient transport and this remains a priority for the Scottish Perinatal Network (SPN), with work commencing to develop guidance on Remote & Rural Intrapartum Transfers. In addition, we continue to support work in Grampian to return obstetric maternity services to Dr Gray's Hospital.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

The process is ongoing and I will update Parliament when a significant development has been made.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

The process is ongoing and I will update Parliament when a significant development has been made.

The Scottish Government does not centrally collect data on waiting times for accessing end-of-life care services across Scotland. Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments.

As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector will be involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to gather this data centrally.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to develop a joint programme to encourage more people, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy. This includes targeting deprived and rural communities.

In our strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ (2017) we committed to enhancing access to pharmaceutical care in rural communities. We commissioned NES to work with rural Health Boards to explore mechanisms to attract more pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to work in rural communities; ensuring any associated education and training needs are flexibly met. We also committed to testing a pharmacy longitudinal clerkship.

Following a pilot with Robert Gordon University and NHS Highland, rural longitudinal clerkships were incorporated into experiential learning in 2022-23. The initiative is open to pharmacy students in the final two years of their undergraduate pharmacy course at both Scottish Schools of Pharmacy.

During Foundation Training Year, to attract potential trainee pharmacists some training providers offer multi sector/split programmes within rural locations. These programmes, where trainees spend time in more than one sector of pharmacy, are highly sought after.

In addition, to promote pharmacy technician recruitment in rural areas, a number of senior pharmacy technicians attend school careers fairs and other recruitment initiatives to raise awareness of the role.

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to tackling food insecurity which can contribute to health inequalities. No one in Scotland should have to compromise on food or other essentials.

Food insecurity is driven by insufficient and insecure household income, which is why we continue to call on the UK Government to deliver an Essentials Guarantee to ensure people have enough money to meet their basic needs, which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate could lift 140,000 people in Scotland out of poverty this year.

Scotland is the first nation in the UK to publish a Cash-First Plan, grounded in human rights, that works towards ending the need for food banks in Scotland. Through “Cash-First: Towards Ending the Need for Food Banks in Scotland”, we are taking forward nine actions over three years, 2023-2026, to improve the response to crisis, using a Cash-First approach so that fewer people need to turn to food parcels. The Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network agree with our approach.

We recognise the pressure on household budgets which is why the 2025-26 draft budget continues to allocate over £3 billion a year to policies which tackle poverty and the cost of living.