Chamber and committees

Unauthorised access to information by the cyber threat actor was contained to information on the NHS Dumfries and Galloway network.

The safety and security of people’s data, and the running of NHS services is of the upmost importance. The NHS in Scotland and across the UK successfully defends itself against attacks on its IT infrastructure on a daily basis, demonstrating resilience to the threats faced.

An Implementation Delivery Group has been set up which has held two meetings on 21 February and 20 March 2024, with a third meeting scheduled for the end of April.

Membership of the Implementation Delivery Group consists of representatives from clinical services, third sector and lived experience, under the chairmanship of Jim Miller, the Chief Executive of NHS 24.

The information requested on how many community children’s nurses are employed by NHS Scotland, broken down by NHS board can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: 05 March 2024 Workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

Access to continuing professional development and education for community children’s nursing staff in Scotland is vital as it enables children to receive specialist care within a setting that is familiar and comforting to them. However, it is the responsibility of higher education institutions to develop and deliver education at Masters level. It is the Scottish Government’s understanding that Robert Gordon University have developed a contemporary Specialist Practitioner Qualification in community children's nursing, at Masters level, which will be presented for approval by the Nursing and Midwifery Council at the end of May this year. If approved, the programme will move forward with a provisional starting date of September 2024.

The Scottish Government fully understands the pressures that hospices are currently facing. The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health engages regularly with this sector, and has visited a number of hospices and met with hospice leaders over the last few months.

Integration Joint Boards are responsible for the planning, and commissioning of adult palliative care services, including hospices, using the integrated budget under their control. We have invested over £2 billion in the 2024-25 budget for social care and integration, delivering on our Programme for Government commitment to increase social care spending by 25% over this Parliament. Despite this significant investment the financial climate remains extremely challenging and we are working with partners to understand and address the challenges, within the context of a finite budget.

The Scottish Government has commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to collect, collate and publish waiting times for all gender identity clinics within the NHS in Scotland. This work will standardise and make routine reporting of waiting time information for these specialist clinical services. This commission also includes collation of patient cohort data, to help inform future service delivery. This work is ongoing.

The Scottish Government also provided funding in 2021 to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to support the publication of a trans/non-binary specific report as part of a wider Health Needs Assessment it published in May 2022, in partnership with NHS Lothian and PHS. The main report can be accessed here: stor.scot.nhs.uk/bitstream/handle/11289/580332/Final Report %2831 May 2022%29.pdf?sequence=1 and the trans/non-binary specific supplementary report accessed here: Health needs assessment LGBT+ people: Transgender and non-binary supplementary report (scot.nhs.uk) .

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has provided grant funding to the University of Glasgow for a programme of research on long-term health outcomes for those accessing gender identity healthcare in Scotland, to help expand the collective evidence base for this healthcare. This work is in progress, and funding has been awarded to a number of research projects and a PhD post as part of this programme.

The National Gender Identity Healthcare Reference Group continues to meet and make progress against all the commitments set out within the referenced December 2021 Strategic Action Framework. This includes:

• Healthcare Improvement Scotland developing standards for gender identity healthcare for NHS Scotland;
• NHS Education Scotland developing a Transgender Health Knowledge and Skills framework for NHS staff;
• Public Health Scotland working with Health Boards to deliver publication of waiting times data by them; and
• Grant funding to the University of Glasgow to administer a programme of research on gender identity healthcare.

Decisions on clinical pathways are not for the Scottish Government. These decisions are for clinicians, based on the best evidence available, through the appropriate clinical governance structures.

The Scottish Government is unaware of any discussions between NHS Scotland Health Boards and the UK Government regarding the prescription of puberty-suppressing hormones as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The Scottish Government understands that Public Health Scotland intends to publish, as official statistics in development, gender identity clinic waiting times information provided by NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Highland and NHS Lothian in late summer 2024. This will be subject to the necessary data quality and completeness standards being met.