Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many people have accessed earwax removal services. Health Boards are responsible for the delivery of primary medical services in their areas.

Formerly most ear wax management procedures were carried out in GP practices. The new GP contract, introduced in 2018, committed Health Boards to set up Community Treatment and Care (CTAC) services to shift workload away from GP practices to NHS Board employed staff so that GP practices could focus on what only they can do. The Scottish Government has confirmed to Health Boards that CTAC services should cover ear wax management generally.

We are supporting the development of CTAC services through the Primary Care Improvement Fund (£190 million in 2023-24).

We are now also introducing an additional ‘phased investment programme’ working with a small number of areas to demonstrate what model CTAC and other related services can look like in practice. The findings from this programme will build understanding of the national context for further implementation and inform future long-term Scottish Government investment.

The first official meeting of the Flow Navigation Special Delivery Group was held on 4 October 2023. The group meet monthly with 4 meetings having taken place since its formation.

The group is led by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and consists of clinical and operational leads, for Flow Navigation Centre’s, from each mainland Health Board. It also includes representatives from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal Collage of General Practitioners, Primary Care, NHS 24, the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Scottish Government.

Alcohol & Drugs Action received funding from the Scottish Government’s National Development Project Fund (NDPF) from 2019 to 2021. High-level NDPF objectives are set out in Grant Offer Letters, and are as follows:

• Recruiting staff to mentoring and supervision roles
• Staff Mentoring roles / training and Recovery Group Peer-led Activity (range, location)
• Advocacy role (training)
• Develop further Peer Volunteer roles (Hospital, Housing, Justice settings)
• Deliver activities in identified key settings
• Evaluate effectiveness of mentor / supervisory aspects
• Evaluate effectiveness of at-risk engagement with services/support
• Adjust and further develop activities as required

Whilst Scottish Government did not directly set the objectives, the Corra Foundation administer funds on our behalf. The Challenge Fund, in 2018-19 and 2019-20 and the National Drugs Mission Funds, from 2021-22, to third sector and grassroots organisations. Alcohol & Drugs Action is a recipient of these funds and details of the projects are available at: Grant holder data - Corra Foundation

The Shetland Folk Festival Society has not received any direct funding from Scottish Government since 2019.

The Shetland Folk Festival Society has received two awards through the Creative Scotland (CS) National Lottery Open Fund since 2019, totalling £24,000.

The CS Open Fund has had three iterations since Shetland Folk Festival Society’s award in 2019 and the criteria for the fund has evolved in-line with CS’ strategic and funding priorities. Full details on these funding programmes are available on Creative Scotland's website.

The Shetland Folk Festival Society also received £21,000 from EventScotland’s National Events Funding Programme in 2022. The KPIs agreed in the funding contract were as follows:

1. Attract at least 8 bands to Shetland to perform at the event

2. Attract an audience of around 6,000 visitors to the event

3. Attract 32% of visitors from outwith the event region

4. Carry out a scaled back community / rural programme in line with local opinion

5. Demonstrate how the event has helped boost community confidence to attend events

We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have full tax powers so that fiscal decisions that affect the people of Scotland can be made by the people who live here.

As outlined in the Pain management service delivery framework: implementation plan update , we are working with Public Health Scotland to improve how we capture and report national data on patients with chronic pain. The current focus is to review and improve waiting times data for first appointments.

Similar to other specialities, Chronic Pain services in Scotland are currently unable to gather electronic data on return appointments in a consistent manner. On completion of the current work around improving data collection for first appointments, we will begin to consider the feasibility: the costs, accuracy and utility of collecting and reporting national data on waits for return appointments.

Local recruitment is the responsibility of the Health Board however, the Scottish Government actively supports health boards across Scotland to plan locally for service need and for service delivery.

Following our £40 million investment from 2014-2018 to recruit an additional 500 Health Visitors, Health Visitor numbers have remained largely stable. Workforce numbers are published quarterly by NHS Education Scotland (NES) in the National NHS Workforce Statistics.

We continue to work closely with Health Boards to monitor the delivery of the Universal Health Visiting Pathway and to best ensure young families get the support they need.

The Scottish Government has not provided funding for the Friends of the Edington Hospital.

The Scottish Government has not provided funding for the Edinburgh Hospital Broadcasting Service.

The range of sexual offences that fall under the proposed jurisdiction of the Sexual Offences Court is set out at Schedule 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. Schedule 3 includes the offence of rape of a child under common law and under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.