Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has no plans to conduct an equality and human rights impact assessment on paediatric long COVID services.

NHS Boards exercise responsibilities in relation to planning, commissioning and delivering healthcare services, and take overall responsibility for the health and wellbeing of the populations they serve. NHS Boards are discrete legal entities and legally accountable and responsible for how they carry out their functions, services, duties and responsibilities.

The Scottish Government is funding a Personality Disorder National Improvement Programme which has been developed in partnership with the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland and is being delivered by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS).

The aim of the Personality Disorder Improvement Programme is to deliver meaningful improvements in services and supports for people impacted by personality disorder. This includes supporting NHS boards to implement practical changes which will improve care pathways for people with a diagnosis of personality disorder.

Phase 1, which concluded in March 2023, involved developing a national needs assessment, the development and delivery of a Personality Disorder Learning System and developing key performance indications for optimising and standardising data collection across Scotland.

Phase 2 is currently underway. HIS is currently working with NHS Dumfries & Galloway and West Lothian HSCP to review pathways, gather lived experience input and feedback, and capture learning around implementation of new pathways. A working group of internal and external stakeholders has also been established to develop a data and measurement plan.

This will form part of the wider mental health reform programme which aims to reform mental health services by enhancing care quality, access, and equity.

We anticipate publishing papers relating to the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group's workforce planning process for 2025-26, in the coming weeks.

As set out in my answer to question S6W-32625 on 8 January 2025, Tier 3 and Tier 4 services are those secondary and specialist mental health services - including Community Mental Health Teams, Adult Acute Psychiatry, and specialist Perinatal Mental Health care, that usually require a referral from a GP or other health care professional. Data on this is not collected centrally by government. Decisions on access to those services are determined locally by NHS Boards.

To ensure access, we have directly allocated £123 million to NHS Boards and IJBs for a new Enhanced Mental Health Outcomes Framework in 2024-25. The Framework focuses on embedding increased capacity around CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), the delivery of psychological therapies, eating disorder care, primary care and neurodevelopmental services, as well as ongoing innovation and service reform - but also brings together a number of other funding streams which includes Perinatal and Infant Mental Health.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Improving access to Mental Health services is a priority for Scottish Government and whilst we recognise the ongoing pressures facing the NHS, we remain committed to supporting all Boards to achieve the standard that 90% of patents start treatment within 18 weeks of referral in CAMHS and PT.

As was announced last week we have seen transformational improvements in CAMHS waiting lists over the last year and this has continued during the latest quarter. For the first time ever, national performance against the 18-week CAMHS standard has been met, with 90.6% of children and young people starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral in the last quarter and 1 in 2 children referred to CAMHS start treatment within 4 weeks compared to 12 weeks pre-pandemic (quarter ending March 2019).

Latest publication of data (4 March 2025) shows Psychological Therapies (PT) services are responding well to demand, with one in two people referred starting treatment within three weeks of referral.

More detailed information, including breakdowns at NHS Board level, can be found on the Public Health Scotland website where the latest publication on both PT and CAMHS waiting time is available for quarter ending December 2024 published on 4 March 2025. Publications - Public Health Scotland

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-34909 on 4 March 2025. We recognise the importance of having access to meaningful data in relation to respiratory services, in 2023 we provided Public Health Scotland with £60,000 to undertake a scoping exercise with a view to developing a respiratory audit programme. Now that the budget for 2025-26 has been passed by Parliament, we aim to progress this in the current financial year.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Emergency early release regulations have been utilised twice within the last five years (May 2020 & June/July 2024). On both occasions, the conditions of release were as they would have been at the individuals original scheduled liberation date, with no additional conditions or sentences applied.

Those released were approaching the end of their short-term prison sentences, and such individuals are not routinely subject to additional monitoring or community service requirements following their release. Therefore, those released via emergency early release were not subject to such conditions.

Individuals whose sentence would require post-release supervision or monitoring requirements were automatically excluded from both emergency early release processes.

The requirement for an individual to complete any kind of community sentence is a matter for the independent courts to decide at the point of sentencing, after consideration of the full facts and circumstances of the case.

The Scottish Government recognises that free bus travel has the potential to be transformative for people seeking asylum, who are among the most vulnerable in society.

At present, people seeking asylum in Scotland who are aged under 22, aged 60 or over or have an eligible disability are entitled to concessionary travel under existing national schemes.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 25 February 2025, has funding allocated to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum who are not already eligible in the coming financial year.

We are committed to exploring if we can extend free bus travel to all people seeking asylum on a longer term basis before the end of the current parliamentary session, subject to an agreed way forward on the policy in terms of practical delivery.

Accordingly, my officials will be reconvening the Working Group with Third Sector representatives and other interested parties in order to consider delivery options. Further information will be provided in due course.

The residential rehabilitation bed capacity survey, published in November 2024, received responses from 25 residential rehabilitation facilities with bed capacity currently in operation that met the definition of residential rehabilitation developed by the Residential Rehabilitation Development Working Group. The bed capacity is not broken down into the number of alcohol detoxification or drug rehabilitation beds.

Facilities were asked to report on their maximum number of beds for residential rehabilitation treatment, and it should be noted that this is not the same as the number of beds occupied.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Government do not hold information on how many beds are currently occupied and what the lowest rate was in 2024. We have however responded to calls for more transparency and accountability by commissioning Public Health Scotland to develop a National Core Minimum Dataset which will form the basis for the monitoring of residential rehabilitation.

The Scottish Budget Documents detailing the Spring Budget Revision to the Budget (Scotland) Act are laid before the Scottish Parliament in February each year.

As set out in these documents, the operating budget provided to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service in each of the last 5 financial years is as follows:

2020-21 £138.0m

2021-22 £162.0m

2022-23 £172.0m

2023-24 £178.6m

2024-25 £187.6m