Chamber and committees

The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 provide that:

A contractor must provide its registered patients with—

1. an online appointment service;

2. an online repeat prescription service; and

3. an online repeat prescription information service,

in a manner which is capable of being electronically integrated with the computer systems of the contractor’s practice and using appropriate systems authorised by the Health Board.

Health Boards are responsible for contracting with GP practices. The Scottish Government does not hold information about how many practices currently provide online booking systems.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Dental Access Initiative applications are first submitted to NHS Dumfries and Galloway for initial processing and approval.

NHS Lothian has received £24.7 million of Capital Formula and the latest forecast indicates that by the year end a further £10.7 million in allocations will be provided for a total of £35.4 million in capital funding in 2023-24.

As set out in our draft budget the capital funding position is extremely challenging, with a UK Government cut of some 10% in our capital budget over the next five years. Nonetheless, this settlement allows formula capital to be maintained at £24.7 million 2023-24 levels in 2024-25. Additional in-year capital allocations will also be provided, but these have not been finalised at this point.

(a) There are a number of published data sets available in Scotland that help us understand bowel cancer. These are facilitated by Public Health Scotland and include data on incidence, mortality, staging, waiting times for cancer organised by tumour type.

Cancer Incidence

Public Health Scotland provides an annual update of cancer incidence statistics in Scotland from January 1997 to December 2021. All cancer types are included. Most recent data can be found here

Cancer Mortality

Public Health Scotland provides interpretations of the risk factors that cause cancer and changes in survival for the most common causes of cancer death. Most recent data can be found here

Cancer Staging

Public Health Scotland provides data examining the impact of COVID-19 on cancer staging distributions, with the focus of the report being on the 2022 data in comparison with the most recent pre-pandemic data (2018 and 2019). Most recent data can be found here

Cancer Waiting Times

Public Health Scotland provides quarterly updates of Cancer Waiting Times statistics, reporting two National Standards on how long patients waited for their first cancer treatment. The 62-day standard applies to patients urgently referred with a suspicion of cancer by a primary care clinician/general dental physician, patients referred by one of the national cancer screening programmes, and direct referrals to hospital where the signs and symptoms are consistent with the cancer diagnosed. The 31-day standard applies to all patients, regardless of the route of referral. The most recent data can be found here

(b) The research conducted by Cancer Research UK, published in the Annals of Oncology journal in January 2024, states that bowel cancer can be linked to diet and alcohol intake. The Scottish Government has introduced strong public health interventions to address these risk factors.

The Scottish Government’s Alcohol Framework sets out our priorities for preventing alcohol-related harm and introduced the Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) to alcohol sales in Scotland. The Scottish Government’s Alcohol Framework, published 20 November 2018, sets out our priorities for preventing alcohol-related harm. It contains 20 actions building on existing measures to change Scotland’s relationship with alcohol, including our world-leading minimum unit pricing policy. The Scottish Government takes a whole population approach to tackling alcohol-related harms, in line with the World Health Organization’s focus on affordability, availability and attractiveness of alcohol.

Prior to the pandemic, the reduction in alcohol sales showed encouraging early signs that the introduction of MUP was having a positive impact. In the 12 months following the introduction of MUP and before the pandemic, there was a 2% decrease in alcohol sales for off premises consumption.

The Scottish Government continue to endorse a healthy balanced diet as represented by the Eatwell Guide . Food Standards Scotland has translated the Eatwell Guide into the Eat Well, Your Way resource. This provides meaningful, practical advice and tips to help people make healthier food and drink choices, whilst acknowledging the social, cultural and environmental influences on food choice.

Our Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan sets out ambitious and wide-ranging action to deliver our vision for a Scotland where everyone eats well and has a healthy weight.

(c) The Scottish Government is committed to detecting cancer as early as possible. A new Detect Cancer Earlier campaign – Be The Early Bird - launched in March 2023, aiming to reduce fear of cancer and empower those with possible symptoms to act early. Following successful independent evaluation, the campaign re-ran in September 2023 to prompt health-seeking behaviour.

The wider Detect Cancer Early Programme works closely with the Scottish Cancer Coalition, including Bowel Cancer UK, to support awareness raising efforts and uses social channels to promote joint content and messages where possible.

Transport Scotland, working on behalf of Scottish Ministers, have no B roads, single track roads or unclassified roads in the Highlands and Islands region under its responsibility.

The local road network is the responsibility of local authorities and they will allocate resources on the basis of local priorities. The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government has spent £6.2m on structural maintenance, strategic road safety and climate change adaption improvements on the A96 between Aberdeen and Nairn in the last 12 months. These costs comprise of construction costs only and do not include design, investigation, or environmental costs of these schemes.

Since 2021 the Scottish Government have made strong progress in meeting the 2021 PFG commitment to provide £100m of funding for new woodland creation during this parliament. We have already spent £96.3m and have commitments for a further £87.8m, for approved applications to create new woodlands during this parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government provides annual funding to Energy Saving Trust (EST) who are an independent organisation working to address the climate emergency, EST then deliver the Used Electric Vehicle Loan on behalf of Scottish Minister.

Since the used electric loan scheme launched in September 2020 we have (i) received 3,885 applications and (ii) approved and paid 2,207 claims. Information on the value of loans paid each month is detailed in the following table:

As set out in the draft Scottish Government budget, the capital funding position is extremely challenging due to the UK Government’s decision to cut our capital budget by nearly 10%.

The capital budget settlement allows for Health Boards’ delegated capital budgets to be maintained at 23-24 levels, for all major projects in construction to be completed and for continued support for the national replacement programmes for ambulances and radiotherapy equipment. Given the current uncertainty regarding availability of funding, regrettably, we have advised boards to pause any new capital projects until capital funding becomes more certain.

Our Infrastructure Investment Plan identified priority health capital projects for funding within that period. As a result of UK Government cuts, we will bring forward a revised Infrastructure Investment Plan in the spring. All due consideration will be given to what projects can be included to ensure the revised Plan is affordable and deliverable.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail. The member may wish to contact ScotRail for this information.