Chamber and committees

As part of work being undertaken to develop the new Palliative Care Strategy, we are gathering and analysing evidence to tell us what actions should be taken to achieve the aim of ensuring that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death, and bereavement support based on their needs and preferences.

We have set up a number of working groups, bringing together stakeholders with expertise in priority areas for action, and these groups are developing recommended actions for inclusion in the strategy for discussion with the Strategy Steering Group (SSG) at its next meeting.

At the September meeting of the SSG there was discussion on the progress of the working groups and work being done to better understand people’s lived experiences of palliative care, as well as the proposed structure and timeline for the Strategy. A minute of the meeting will be available on the SG website, at https://www.gov.scot/groups/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-strategy-steering-group/ , once this has been agreed by the group.

In line with the normal budget processes the Scottish Government is engaging regularly with the Scottish Funding Council on preparation for the 2024-25 Budget. This engagement will continue with the Scottish Funding Council and the sector to ensure we put the needs of learners first.

The published figure for higher education resource funding in the 2023-24 budget was £809.2 million and this will be used as a comparator figure for the 2024-25 Budget announcement.

Information on the incidence or occurrence of rare conditions such as cystic fibrosis is not held centrally by the Scottish Government, however, it is estimated that approximately 900 people in Scotland have cystic fibrosis .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-22774 on 21 November 2023. 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.

The other two medicines alluded to in that answer are Orkambi ® , and Symkevi ® .

If any cystic fibrosis medicine is not recommended in the final multiple technology appraisal (MTA) guidance, clinicians in Scotland will be able to request the use of that medicine on a case-by-case basis for individual patients using the Peer Approved Clinical System (PACS) Tier Two process. National guidance explicitly states that Health Boards should not take account of the cost of medicines when considering applications using the PACS Tier Two system.

The 2022 teacher census total was 54,193 teachers, which indicates an increase of 1,946 from the baseline, as measured by the 2019 census.

To inform decisions on future education workforce planning I have commissioned an external modelling and research exercise which will allow all of the issues around workforce planning to be considered holistically and will help ensure we will have an education workforce in place that enables us to progress our commitments to reducing teachers’ class contact time, raising attainment overall, closing the poverty related attainment gap and improving additional support for learning, while delivering maximum value for money during an era where budgets continue to be under pressure as a result of UK Government austerity measures.

Agreed budget savings were announced as part of the Deputy First Minister’s Statement to the Scottish Parliament on 21 November 2023. Further details of savings were included in the ‘Update on 2023-24 In-Year Budget Changes - Letter of 21 November 2023,’ sent to the Finance and Public Administration Committee convenor Kenneth Gibson MSP. A copy of this letter can be found here

The Scottish Government believes that every child should be given the opportunity to learn to swim, it is a life skill that can save lives.

While the Active Lives Survey relates to England only, we recognise that children living in areas of deprivation may be less likely to be able to swim. We have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sportscotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers. Inclusion has been central to the approach and there is a specific focus on targeting areas within quintile 1 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Four Delivery Pilots have taken place to support schools to understand and consider different approaches on how best to support young people to access school swimming. An evaluation, available here , has been published and we will work with Scottish Swimming and sportscotland to utilise the learning from these pilots to consider the best approach for a continued roll out of a national framework for school swimming.

Our Water Safety action plan which focuses on key initiatives to improve education, data, local area water safety planning and incident reviews, was updated in June 2023.

To ensure that people get the financial support that they are entitled to as quickly as possible, adult disability benefit applications from people with a terminal illness in Scotland are fast-tracked. We also ensure that those who are terminally ill automatically receive the highest rates of assistance that they are entitled to, with no award reviews. They are eligible for this support straight away, with no qualifying period.

The new palliative care strategy will seek to understand and respond to the social determinants of people’s experiences towards the end of life, including financial insecurity and housing.

The Scottish Government has published 198 Easy Read documents on the gov.scot website since January 2022. The list of the policy papers that have been published with an associated easy read version is available on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications.