Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to collaborate with key partners across the NHS in Scotland to ensure that relevant information, with the appropriate safeguards in place, is available to all healthcare professionals, including community pharmacists, when and where they need it.

As community pharmacists expand their clinical role, there is an increasing need for them to have read/write access to clinical records to ensure that they can safely assess and agree a clinical management plan for a person and any associated actions or treatments can be viewed by other healthcare professionals involved in a person’s care, without any unnecessary delay.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer has commissioned work to explore how read/write access to clinical records can be delivered incrementally.

Adult to child staff ratios are set by the Care Inspectorate as the regulatory body for the Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) sector and as experts in assessing high quality, safe and nurturing ELC provision.

The Care Inspectorate has no plans to update the current guidance, published 2018. Therefore, the Scottish Government has made no assessment of the potential impact on the average cost of childcare provision relating to ratios.

Takeaway meal containers (lunch boxes) and single use coffee cups in the Garden Level Restaurant are fully compostable, made from a fibrous by product of sugar cane.  Single use coffee cups at the coffee bar are made from paper, paperboard and recyclable materials and are designed for industrial composting.

Compostable items are placed in the food waste bins located throughout the building and are taken by a commercial food waste recycling company to the Anaerobic Digestion Plant at Millerhill just outside Edinburgh.

19 tonnes of food and compostable packaging were taken to the Anaerobic Digestion Plant at Millerhill in 2024/25. This represents 26% of our operational waste stream.

For the period of April 2024-March 2025, 36% of hot beverages sold were served in single use cups. And for the same period, 31% of sales made in the Garden Level Restaurant were in single use lunch boxes.

In partnership with our catering supplier we are implementing many measures to reduce the consumption of single use disposable items such as;

• continuation of the disposable hot drink cup charge to encourage colleagues to use their reuseable cups.
• Removal of disposable cutlery and placing collection caddies at each tea point to return metal cutlery back to the kitchen for cleaning
• Introduction of reusable take away food containers and various campaigns to encourage uptake.
• Actively exploring further options to support reusables and educating users on environmental benefits
• Holding a stock of reuseable hot drink cups for customers on a return basis
  

More information about our Sustainability Plan including waste minimisation is available on our website Sustainability | Scottish Parliament Website.

As of 3 April 2025, the number of postgraduate medicine training places occupied by individuals who studied as undergraduates in Scotland is 4081, the number of places occupied by individuals who studied as undergraduates in the rest of the UK is 1558. NHS Education for Scotland do not record UK citizen status or permanent UK residency status specifically.

The Scottish Government’s "National Strategy for Economic Transformation" sets out our aim to make Scotland’s regions, businesses, industries, communities and public services more productive and innovative.

It is important to note that in Scotland, not everyone who is receiving Social Security benefits are out of work. Our data shows that 33% of people on Universal Credit are in employment.

However, the Scottish Government aims to improve employment opportunities for those who face barriers in the labour market. Our No One Left Behind approach delivers an all-age, place-based, person-centred model of employability support in Scotland. Services are designed local to ensure the needs of that particular demographic are met. Services are voluntary, aiming to support individuals towards the right job at the right time.

Scotland also has 2 Investment Zones designed to deliver economic growth, more high skilled jobs, investment, and future opportunities for local people, as well as 2 Green Freeports which will boost innovation and inclusive growth within communities and both will support economic transformation and stimulate employment opportunities.

The latest Poverty and Inequality Statistics in Scotland publication can be accessed here: https://data.gov.scot/poverty/

The publication reports that 75% of children in relative poverty were living in working households in the period 2021-24.

In 2025-26 we will provide an additional £55.6 million in funding for NRAC parity, ensuring that all Boards remain within 0.6% of parity.

Since 2012-13, over £4 billion of additional funding has been committed to those NHS Boards below their NRAC parity levels.

Additional funding for NRAC parity, broken down by NHS Board, is provided below. Where no amount is stated, the NHS Board is within 0.6% of parity.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6O-03953 on 10 October 2024. All answers to Oral Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at Official Report: search what was said in Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website

Statistics on more able pupil as a reason for support are published in the pupil census supplementary statistics. This is available on the Scottish government website here https://www.gov.scot/publications/pupil-census-supplementary-statistics/.

Local authorities oversee the delivery of education and have a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and to review the support that they provide for pupils with additional support needs, including more able pupils.

The iMatter Continuous Improvement Programme, which was developed by NHSScotland staff, enables the measurements of staff experience and employee engagement across all 22 Health Boards as well as participating Health and Social Care Partnerships.

This enables Health Boards to ensure that the insights and experiences of staff are captured and acknowledged, helping to influence and shape initiatives to enhance staff support.