Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government spent £20,837 on the recent awareness campaign on Crohn’s and Colitis.

The former Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care met with Crohn’s & Colitis UK on 1 March 2023.

Since 2019, the Scottish Government has invested over £26 million in improvements to perinatal services and support for parents, infants and families across Scotland. This investment has facilitated a substantial increase in services and workforce across Scotland.

The Scottish Government also supports the Perinatal Mental Health Scotland Network which provides support to health boards on all aspects of service development, training, supervision and good practice.

Our investment also supports NHS Education Scotland to undertake workforce development and training, including a suite of training accessible to all professionals across Scotland.

The Scottish Government will continue to invest in perinatal and infant mental health to enable boards to recruit the required staff; to further establish specialist community perinatal and infant mental health services and to deliver on Scottish Government commitments towards perinatal and infant mental health in the long term.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17825 on 22 May 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

We recognise the value of peer support as a key component of perinatal mental health support. However, we are clear that this does not replace the need for clinical services where that is required to help individuals and their families.

The Scottish Government is supporting clinical service provision by investing in the development and implementation of Community Mental Health Services, Mother and Baby Units, Infant Mental Health and Maternity Neonatal Phycological Interventions services. This is creating capacity within clinical services to ensure they are well placed to offer effective perinatal support in every health board across Scotland, with peer support services complementing clinical work.

NHS Boards have local governance for peer support roles which will include the scope of the role, confidentiality and supervision arrangements. Mother and Baby Units can access guidance on peer support worker roles and the support which should be provided for them from Perinatal Mental Health Network Scotland.

The Scottish Government is funding a range of peer support models to improve perinatal mental healthcare across Scotland. These include paid peer support workers, volunteer peer support workers, peer support in specialised mental health services, peer support in marginalised groups and informal peer support including online services.

The Scottish Government established an annual peer support event to bring together practitioners across Scotland to showcase good practice and highlight the work being undertaken across localities. This shares knowledge and creates an opportunity for learning and understanding on how to effectively implement peer support tools to reach everyone in Scotland who needs support.

Whilst the management of the prison estate – including privately operated HMP Addiewell - is an operational matter for the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), I take very seriously the significant issues highlighted in the Inspectorate’s report.

It is clearly unacceptable that anyone in custody in Scotland should feel unsafe.

I have a meeting later this month with both the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and Sodexo Justice Services to discuss His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland’s (HMIPS) inspection findings for HMP Addiewell.

SPS and Sodexo Justice Services are engaging at the highest possible levels to ensure HMP Addiewell is a safe and secure prison and are committed to addressing the concerns raised in the HMIPS report.

Safety is an absolute priority and plans and actions are being scrutinised to ensure necessary improvements and changes are delivered. Abuse, threating behaviour, bullying and violence by prison staff will not be tolerated and any complaint of criminality is automatically referred to Police Scotland.

Through the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Fund And Small Grants Fund, we provide funding for both father specific and whole family work. From 2021 to March 2023, we have provided over £1 million to groups including Home-Start Glasgow North and North Lanarkshire, Quarriers, CrossReach, Sure Start Midlothian, Dads Rock and Fathers Network Scotland. This includes funding for peer support groups for new fathers, which can provide a valuable source of support.

We have also committed to working with Fathers Network Scotland to better understand the evidence around mental health within the perinatal period for fathers and partners.

a) Prescription charges were removed in Scotland in financial year 2011-12, with £57m being baselined into territorial board budgets. The prescription charge for a single item in 2007-08 was £6.85. In England, where prescription charges were not abolished, the single item charge increased to £9.65 in April 2023.

b) In 2022-23 the nominal price payments for the Older & Disabled Persons’ scheme was £158.4m, and the Young Persons’ Scheme was £109.1m. These figures may be subject to future revision as operators have up to 12 months to make a claim for reimbursement in line with scheme legislation. Statistics on concessionary travel can be found in Chapter 2 via the following link: https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/scottish-transport-statistics-2022/

c) Information on expenditure related to Free Personal and Nursing Care is published annually, and is publicly available via the following link: Health and social care analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

There are currently three specialist endometriosis centres throughout Scotland. The centres are in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian.

The three endometriosis specialist centres accept patients from across Scotland when specialist surgery for complex endometriosis is required.