Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-20583 on 20 December 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx . .

The Scottish Government provides secretariat support to the Task and Finish Group. The Group is chaired by a consultant physician in respiratory and general internal medicine.

The cost for the secretariat is met within existing resources.

My officials are in regular contact with NHS Lanarkshire about the dispute which has arisen between ISS UK, who sub-contract to provide facilities management services at University Hospital, Hairmyres under PFI arrangements, and their staff.

I wrote to ISS UK on 8 April and 2 May urging the company to engage fully with the Staff Side to resolve this dispute, but have not so far received a response. I have written again to ISS UK and GMB suggesting the involvement of ACAS as an independent body to try and resolve this dispute. I also met with the unions involved, Unison and GMB, on 23 May to hear their concerns.

There have been calls for the Scottish Government to provide direct financial assistance to the staff involved but it should be noted that, as the staff affected are employees of a private company, there is no mechanism to do so. Any such intervention would require primary legislation to be put in place.

Whilst not able to directly help staff financially, the Scottish Government was able to provide assurances that support will be provided for any bid by NHS Lanarkshire to bring contracted out services back in house when the present contract ends.

Delivery of access to free sanitary products in schools has been devolved to local authorities. This approach enables local authorities to shape delivery of access to free sanitary products in line with local need, encouraging innovative approaches and we expect local authorities to take account of their home-schooled population in considering delivery models. For example, they should ensure that the provision which is put in place for access at weekends and during the holidays is also accessible to home schooled children.

Furthermore, due to our £4 million investment announced in January, home-schooled and excluded pupils should now also be able to access free sanitary products from other local authority settings within their communities.

The Scottish Government has provided over £3.3 million since 2006 to Health Improvement Scotland (HIS) to support NHS Boards, to deliver sustained improvements.

From this funding, NHS Tayside have benefitted from Improvement Advisors who undertake diagnostic work and develop and implement an improvement plan to improve waiting times.

In addition, HIS are providing bespoke support to NHS Tayside to continue to help them to build on the detailed Demand, Capacity, Activity, Queue (DCAQ) diagnostic analysis that was carried out by ihub in 2018. The information from this continues to inform the improvement planning process.

In March 2019, HIS along with Scottish Government Officials, met with the Chief Executive and senior staff from NHS Tayside to support the development of a wider mental health improvement plan across psychological therapies and children and young people’s services, and HIS are providing support to services to implement this.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with NHS Tayside and other relevant organisations to ensure that appropriate resource is provided to ensure the delivery of high quality mental health services.

The 2019-20 Scottish budget included £53.8 million in NHS Boards baseline allocations for alcohol and drug funding. Allocations to individual boards are set out in the following table. We will be writing to Integration Authorities and ADPs in the coming weeks to outline Ministerial Priorities for 2019-20.

In financial year 2018-19, £17 million was allocated directly to ADPs through the Local Improvement Fund. The same amount remains available to Integration Authorities and ADPs in 2019-20. We will be writing to Integration Authorities in the coming weeks to confirm allocations.

Like its policies on other food matters, the Scottish Government’s position is informed by advice from Food Standards Scotland (FSS), which is in turn underpinned by scientific advice provided by the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) and, in this instance, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Scottish Government recognises that there have been long standing concerns that the addition of nitrates and nitrites to food and subsequent production of nitrosamines could lead to an increased risk of cancer, particularly colorectal cancer. However, FSS advises that there are a number of other mechanisms that could explain why processed meat consumption might promote carcinogenesis. For this reason, dietary advice relating to red and processed meat is based on limiting these foods in the diet for the purpose of reducing the risk of colorectal cancer and not specifically due to their nitrate or nitrite content.

Nitrites are important preservatives in certain meat products and their use in these products is regulated under EU food additives legislation which is reviewed regularly to ensure regulatory limits are at the lowest possible level to perform their required function. FSS considers that current evidence supports the safety of processed meat containing levels of nitrates and nitrites that comply with those regulatory limits.

The Scottish dietary goal for red and processed meat sets limits for the consumption of all red and processed meat for the purpose of reducing the risk to the population of colorectal cancer. In line with EFSA opinion and current scientific evidence, the position of the Scottish Government is that it is safe to eat processed meat containing nitrates and nitrites which comply with prescribed EU limits.

The Scottish Government, along with the rest of the UK is advised on all aspects of screening by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) an independent expert advisory group. Using research evidence, pilot programmes and economic evaluation, it assesses the evidence for programmes against a set of internationally recognised criteria.

The UK NSC last reviewed screening for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in 2018 and did not recommend introducing a national screening programme. This is because current tests are not reliable in people who have no symptoms of COPD; and there is not enough evidence to understand whether medicines are effective for people with mild COPD which would be detected by screening.

Although the UK NSC does not currently recommend a national screening programme for COPD, all policies are reviewed regularly and screening for COPD will be reviewed again in 2021-22. Any change to the recommendation will be carefully considered by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is advised by Food Standards Scotland (FSS) on food safety and standards. Neither the Scottish Government nor FSS has undertaken any analysis on the availability and cost of nitrite-free preservation/curing of products, such as bacon, by using fruit and spice extracts.

All food additives including preservative factors extracted from fruits and spices require authorisation by the EU based on scientific evidence for their efficacy and safety. Plant-based preservatives may take a variety of different forms and some are essentially naturally derived nitrates which, when consumed in foods, can be converted to nitrites and nitrosamines in the same way as permitted sodium and potassium nitrates.

With regard to our position on nitrates and nitrites in food, I refer the member to the answers to questions S5W-23695 on 26 June 2019, S5W-23693 on 21 June 2019, S5W-23537 on 10 July 2019, S5W-23315 on 4 June 2019 and S5W-22368 on 18 April 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

In terms of school and hospital foods, procurement is a matter for local authorities and health boards respectively. The government’s role is to set the required national standards. With regard to school food, Ministers recently published a report setting out the detail of changes to be made to the school food and drink regulations, including red and red processed meat. NHS Health Facilities Scotland published revised national standards for food, fluid and nutrition for hospitals in 2016 which take account of the latest scientific advice on the amount of red and red processed meat for a healthy, balanced diet.