Chamber and committees

Suicide Prevention Scotland, the delivery vehicle for Creating Hope Together, has been engaging with Suicide Prevention Leads in local areas to facilitate the development of local suicide bereavement approaches that meet the needs of their communities.

Specifically, in the Borders region, there has been good engagement with the local suicide prevention lead within the Health and Social Care Partnership to progress work to develop a local Suicide Bereavement Service. It is anticipated this will connect to the existing After a Suicide Working Group and Wellbeing Hub resources.

The Scottish Government does not retain this information.

Public Dental Service Senior Dental Officers (SDO) have varying individual duties across management and outreach responsibilities. The clinical hours required for an SDO will therefore vary within an NHS Board and between the other NHS health boards.

I have the utmost sympathy for the women who may have been adversely affected by diethylstilbestrol (otherwise known as DES or stilbestrol).

The regulations for the licensing, safety and efficacy of medicines is currently reserved to the UK Government and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Any review of diethylstilbestrol (otherwise known as DES or stilbestrol) would ultimately be a matter for them to consider.

The Independent Working Group’s report on Antisocial Behaviour raises many important issues, including housing related matters and homelessness. The Scottish Government, Police Scotland and COSLA are considering the recommendations and Ministers provided a progress report to Parliament on key areas in April which will be followed by a comprehensive response in the Summer.

We are continuing to work closely with partners to design and plan the expansion of suicide bereavement support across Scotland, taking account of the evaluation findings and existing local provision.

In addition to delivering suicide bereavement support services in Highland and Ayrshire & Arran Health Boards, Suicide Prevention Scotland has progressed discussions to establish suicide bereavement support which connects to existing local and national provision in several NHS Board areas. These are: Borders, Tayside, Fife, Shetland, Dumfries & Galloway and Greater Glasgow & Clyde.

We will continue our discussions with the remaining health boards over the coming months.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. Details regarding the Campbeltown workforce including students on clinical outreach placement will be held by NHS Highland.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The information may be held under the National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) which is a key function of the Public Dental Service, for which responsibility lies with Health Boards.

The NDIP website holds reports dating back to 2003 and covers information on how many children received an inspection each year. The website also holds some earlier reports from the Scottish Health Boards Epidemiological Programme (SHBDEP), which preceded NDIP.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken any specific assessment in regards to the impact of a lack of continuity in senior medical staffing on patient care. However, we regularly engage with Boards at official level to ensure they are providing a safe, high-quality service to patients.

In addition, we are progressing the actions within the Mental health and wellbeing: workforce action plan 2023-2025 which seeks to address key workforce challenges. This includes the Mental Health Nursing Review and Psychiatry Recruitment and Retention Working Group, which are due to report shortly. This work has been informed by views from each profession and people with lived and living experience.

The first three year Creating Hope Together action plan was published in 2022 and covers the period 2022-2025.

As outlined in the answer S6W-35639 on 27 March 2025, we are starting to develop our next three-year action plan which we intend to publish in early 2026. This will build on the existing suicide prevention work and the significant insights gathered over the lifespan of the current action plan, as well as reflecting emerging and new evidence on suicide prevention. We will be engaging with our key stakeholders, our lived experience panels and others in the coming months so that they can help shape the next action plan.

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 recording of reported dog attack data is an operational matter for Police Scotland. The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Police Scotland may hold information relevant to the subject matter for this PQ and the member may wish to ask for through a freedom of information request to Police Scotland: Freedom of Information - Police Scotland.