Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises that international experience tells us that digital transformation can take up to 10 years to change services, upskill workforce, develop new systems and set up the governance and leadership needed to drive the change forward.

Work has been ongoing in partnership with local government, to set out how we commission the products we need to ensure that the actions within the strategy are achieved and outcomes delivered. Part of this work has been focussed on getting the key elements of a framework for digital transformation right and we are currently re-considering our approach to governance and leadership, including oversight and assurance, and prioritisation in-line with the current spending review for the next four years.

The Scottish Government is committed to deliver the Waiting Times Improvement Plan, and any discussion on future targets will involve the public, clinicians and others, in order to ensure that targets and improvement measures best support patient care.

The Scottish Government is working to accelerate inclusive economic growth across Scotland, including in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency.

Our national Economic Action Plan, launched in October 2018 supports a competitive business environment, including investment in a highly skilled workforce and a diverse economy. A refreshed Action Plan will be launched soon.

The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency benefits from in a range of support for business and economic growth. For example:

Hamilton and Larkhall will benefit directly from our £500 million investment in the Glasgow City Region City Deal, which includes £62m for four community growth areas - including Hamilton and Larkhall - delivering a number of individual education, transport and community infrastructure projects to enhance the lives of the people living in these towns, and beyond.

Scottish Enterprise account manages 145 companies in South Lanarkshire, and in 2018-19 the agency made Regional Selective Assistance offers in the area totalling £938,000, supporting the creation of 106 jobs and safeguarding a further 25, and in the first quarter of 2019-20 the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland delivered 754 Modern Apprenticeship starts in South Lanarkshire, up from 641 starts at the same time last year.

Business Gateway, our national business advice service is delivered by local authorities, and in South Lanarkshire Business Gateway supported 2,046 businesses, 488 new start-ups, and 215 businesses with their growth plans during the last financial year.

Scotland has the most generous package of rates relief anywhere in the UK, and the most recent statistics show that more than half of businesses in South Lanarkshire, where these towns lie, received at least one type of relief. The Small Business Bonus Scheme alone in South Lanarkshire benefitted 4,400 properties and was valued at over £11.9 million - that is money which the Scottish Government has freed up for business investment and development in order to support job creation and retention in the area.

Information in the format requested is not held centrally.

However, the annual Scottish Diabetes Survey contains data on the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in each year since 2009. The surveys for the last five years can be access at the following link: http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications.aspx?catld=3 .

It is the responsibility of individual NHS Boards to identify and provide services that meet the needs of their local population, including support for children and young people with diabetes.

Patients have access to specialist diabetes clinicians and nurses at the point of diagnosis.

Diabetes Specialist Nurses are based in adult and paediatric services in all NHS Boards in Scotland providing ongoing advice and support to patients and carers.

Information on the number of staff employed by the NHS to provide this service broken down by NHS Board is not held centrally.

The decision to increase charges at the 4 stations which are staffed during opening hours was a commercial decision taken by ScotRail. The remaining 91 stations which have toilet facilities remain free. Toilets are available on all trains serving these stations.

The Scottish Government collects detailed information from a range of sources relating to the prescribing, distribution and supervision of ORT across the country. This information can be found on the ScotPHO website - https://www.scotpho.org.uk/behaviour/drugs/data/treatment-for-drug-misuse/ .

Our Programme for Government commits a further £20 million pounds over the next 2 years to support local services and provide targeted support. This will allow our new Taskforce to support pathfinder projects, such as a new national pathway for Opiate Substitute Therapy will increase effectiveness across the country and help to reduce stigma.

The Scottish Government has also commissioned Information Services Division (ISD) to develop a better system to assess the numbers of people who benefit from ORT. Currently the differences in prescribing practices between NHS Boards and issues with the completeness of personal identifiers in prescribing data mean that this information is difficult to collect.

I announced a Quality and Safety Board which will consider the arrangements for quality planning, improvement and assurance and be informed by the work of the Independent Inquiry. Membership and terms of reference for this Board have yet to be agreed.

There are no current discussions regarding the feasibility of bringing NHS catering services in-house. However, NHSScotland is undertaking an ambitious programme to deliver the National Catering Strategy that was published in 2017 and that seeks to maximise investment and support the delivery of safe, consistent, high quality food served across NHSS .

The Chronic Pain Primary Care Clinical Lead is a dedicated post, specifically to implement the findings from the Scottish Access Collaborative Chronic Pain Design workshop report. Recruiting to this post reflects the strong Primary Care focus of the report recommendations. While there is a strong focus on Primary Care this role will work across primary and secondary care to strengthen the links and explore more sustainable models of care. This will help to reduce the demand on secondary care consultants and thus free up capacity so that those who need who need secondary care, and those on the waiting list for these services, can be seen sooner.