Chamber and committees

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As part of our strategic approach to healthcare science, the Scottish Government is actively undertaking work to ensure healthcare science professions, including audiology, are included as part of wider work on reform and renewal of NHS Scotland.

This sits hand in hand with activity which will enable us to be able to map our scientific workforce in NHS Scotland more accurately, strengthening capacity, training and recruitment pipelines for audiologists, and supporting better workforce planning for the future.

Scottish Government recognises that diagnosing brain cancer can be challenging as symptoms are wide-ranging and often vague.

Through our Cancer strategy 2023 to 2033 - gov.scot and initial three year Cancer action plan 2023 to 2026 - gov.scot published in June 2023, a new Earlier Cancer Diagnosis Vision was developed. This vision aims to reduce later stage disease by 18 percentage points in 10 years’ time, with a focus on reducing the health inequalities gap, including for those with brain tumours.

Actions and resources to aid this vision include the Get Checked Early and NHS Inform websites, which highlight the possible symptoms of brain tumours, encouraging individuals to contact their General Practice for early detection and referrals.

In August 2025, Scottish Government published the updated Scottish Referral Guidelines for Urgent Suspicion of Cancer. These guidelines support primary care clinicians to identify those with symptoms suspicious of cancer and identify those who require urgent assessment by a specialist and for the first time, the guideline includes an update to the guidance for urgent referral for suspected brain tumours

Other resources to support primary care also include:

• Gateway C, a new primary care cancer education platform launched in April 2024. Gateway C provides tailored information to support earlier cancer diagnosis and enable effective decision-making. This platform is accessible to all primary care clinicians and includes a brain tumour course specifically aimed at assisting the effective assessment and management of patients with a potential brain tumour.
• A new National Headache Pathway published by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. This pathway, based on presentation at General Practice, clearly lists red flag symptoms that indicate the need for urgent and/or emergency assessment to exclude a secondary cause, such as a brain tumour.

Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that anyone diagnosed with cancer has access to a range of services throughout their cancer pathway. We are aware that individuals’ support needs change and evolve during this time.

The Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) has developed National Clinical Management Pathway (CMP) for adult neuro-oncology. This sets out an optimal treatment and support pathway for adults diagnosed with a brain tumour from diagnosis to end of life care.

The CMP outlines a consensus of clinical best practice, and includes information on a range of treatment and supportive care support following a diagnosis. This, ensures that everyone diagnosed with and living with a brain tumour have access the best possible care and support.

The Scottish Government instructed NHS Territorial Health Boards to outline their governance, reporting and management processes through a Local Assurance Framework in 2024, as well as, requiring the inclusion of audiology in their 2025-26 Annual Delivery Plans.

Decisions regarding accessibility policy and planning of this nature are made by individual Health Boards based on local priorities and needs. Boards are expected to assess the impact of their policies and functions on people with protected characteristics and equality groups in line with statutory requirements.

As part of Improving Quality in Physiological Services (IQIPS) benchmarking, a mapping exercise is currently underway which includes the consideration of national KPI reporting for audiology services.

An executive lead group for audiology has been reestablished, with representation from each NHS Territorial Health Board to consider the outputs and next steps of this work, which will conclude within the current financial year.

As previously noted to Mr Eagle, the First Minister and President Von der Leyen met on 26 July, holding a cordial and substantive discussion on Scottish and European interests. A minute of this meeting is available at: First Minister meeting with President of the European Commission: FOI release - gov.scot

Every child has the right to play under the United Nations Conventions of the Rights of the Child. The Scottish Government wants every child to be able to play across all stages and aspects of their life to support their social development, resilience, language and communication development, health, physical and mental wellbeing.

In May 2023, we introduced regulations regarding Play Sufficiency Assessments which require planning authorities to assess and provide statements as regards to the quality, quantity and accessibility of both formal and informal play spaces for children in their areas. Considerations should be given to equality of access and inclusion. A planning guidance was published in December 2023 to support the implementation of the PSA Regulations.

Additionally, on 24 March 2025 we published our Play Vision Statement and Action Plan 2025-2030, which recognises girls as one of the groups of children whose right to play are most at risk. In collaboration with our key partners in local authorities and the third sector we are leading on an action to share effective practice on maintenance and development of free, accessible and inclusive public spaces by the end of 2026. This will include principles for the design and maintenance of public spaces to create an environment where girls feel safe and welcome in public play spaces.

Scotland’s Baby Box is a universal demand led programme and the cost for the programme fluctuates according to Scotland’s birth rates. The specific cost of the items contained within the Baby Box and the box itself are subject to commercial sensitivity of the contract the Scottish Government has with its managing agent APS (Scotland) Group.

The total cost of an individual Baby Box which includes contents and all logistics is provided in the following table.

The Scottish Government welcomes the findings from the General Medical Council Report, and we will ensure any concerns raised are fully considered and addressed.

The Scottish Government meets regularly with Boards and Healthcare Improvement Scotland to discuss what actions can be taken to continue to build on the programmes of work already in place to improve the quality and safety of care delivered to patients in Scotland and to ensure a co-ordinated and holistic approach. These programmes and legislation include;

• The Scottish Patient Safety Programme, underpinned by the Essentials of Safe Care, which is currently being refreshed for re-launch in October 2025.
• Safe Delivery of Care Inspections, which were expanded in January 2025 to include inspection of maternity services.
• A National Framework for Reviewing and Learning from Adverse Events in NHS Scotland, updated in February 2025, which provides a system-wide approach for identifying, reviewing, and learning from events.
• The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland), which came into force on 1 April 2024, puts systems and processes in place to enable real-time assessment of staffing.
• The Scottish National Audit Programme recently commissioned new audits which aim to improve service provision and patient outcomes

In addition, the Scottish Government introduced legislation for a Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland. Scotland’s first Patient Safety Commissioner, Karen Titchener, took up her post on 1 September.

A Quality and Safety Sub-group of the NHS Scotland Executive Group, chaired by Dr John Harden, Scottish Government National Clinical Lead for Quality and Safety, meets regularly to review data and reports from across the system, including the above programmes, to support improvement in the quality, safety and outcomes of care provided by NHS Scotland.