Chamber and committees

CMAL have used a closed tendering process through the Public Contracts Scotland portal for the procurement of 2 further Islay Class RoPAx vessels. This procurement allows for local content to be considered as part of the evaluation process amongst many other commercial and technical aspects. No specific criteria has been set.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12306 on 5 December 2022 2022. 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 Scottish Government is fully committed to ensuring that the NHS in Scotland delivers high quality, safe, effective and person-centred care to all patients, every time they access health services. The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) continues to be implemented in every NHS Board, including NHS Forth Valley. It is designed to improve the safety of care. It is vital for patients to have confidence that when they access any part of the healthcare system, they will receive the best available treatment without fear of harm.

The Stage 4 escalation is not a reflection of the staff working tirelessly to provide care for the population of Forth Valley. The wellbeing and support for staff is paramount. This escalation decision has been made to allow the leadership team to take forward the transformational change required to improve the culture and leadership, but with the appropriate additional support through the Assurance Board, to ensure effective and efficient change which they have not been able to implement to date. NHS Forth Valley are responsible for delivering improvement against an agreed Plan, and support will be provided to assist NHS Forth Valley in delivery.

If staff do wish to raise concerns during this time then they should be supported to do so and they should be protected throughout the process and not suffer any harm as a result of speaking up. Boards are expected to investigate concerns fairly and appropriately.

A national oversight group responsible for a review of AHP Education and Workforce Review has recently concluded its work. The collaborative group involving a wide range of AHP stakeholders including professional bodies, HEIs and NHS Boards have produced a number of recommendations. Workforce and recruitment and education delivery models have been considered and, although I will not pre-empt the recommendations of that group, I look forward to receiving the suite of recommendations the group has put forward regarding the future of training and development of AHP staff.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office invests through NHS Research Scotland in research infrastructure in Health Boards that allows them to host and participate in clinical research studies and trials. Health Boards make individual decisions about participating in the trials that are offered to them, subject to the trials that are already being supported within each Health Board, and the research expertise and capacity available to take on additional trials. Scottish Health Boards are continuing to participate in a number of trials of medicines for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 disease, providing opportunities for their patient populations to enrol in these studies, although none currently include Evusheld. Should a trial sponsor organisation approach Scottish Health Boards about participating in a trial of Evusheld, participation would be considered by Health Boards with participation subject to the research expertise and capacity available.

I am aware that Recycling Technologies Ltd. and Group Plc, which are involved in the Scottish recycling project, Project Beacon, have recently gone into administration.

Zero Waste Scotland awarded Recycling Technologies £1 million on 24 August 2017 as part of the Circular Economy Investment Fund. There is a two-stage application process for this Fund. Each stage includes financial due diligence including a credit check at stage 1 and commercial review at stage 2.

Given the ongoing administration process, it would be inappropriate to comment further on this matter at this stage.

The information requested on what percentage of the total number of doctors have permanently left NHS Scotland in each of the last five years is not centrally available. We do not hold data on the number of staff that have permanently left NHS Scotland.

Information on the number of leavers by financial year, broken down by job family and NHS Board, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12413 on 9 December 2022. 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 requested information on what percentage of NHS staff have been (a) full- and (b) part-time in each year since 1999 is not centrally held. Information on how many NHS Scotland Staff currently in post, broken down by (a) full time and (b) part-time in each year since 2012 can be found in the following link:

NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

Regulation of the medical profession is reserved to the UK Parliament and the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

As at 1 st October 2021, there were 922 GP Practices. This data was published on 14 th December 2021 – ( GP Workforce and practice list sizes 2011 - 2021 - Publications - Public Health Scotland ).

The Scottish Government does not hold figures for how many GP Practices have closed. However, the slight decrease in practice numbers shown in the report is largely driven by practice mergers and a trend towards larger practices with more GPs serving a larger number of patients.