Chamber and committees

The Cost of Living Crisis represents an unprecedented challenge and is undoubtedly having an impact on communities across Scotland. Effective fire safety, to prevent fires and reduce their impact, remains a priority for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and this was reflected in the latest Fire and Rescue Framework published earlier this year: Fire and rescue framework 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Our Programme for Government set out to use our Emergency Budget Review to double our Fuel Insecurity Fund to £20 million, which has helped households at risk of self-disconnection, or self-rationing their energy use, since late 2020. Support is provided to people either as fuel vouchers, or via direct payments to their energy suppliers, and is available to people on any tariff type and using any kind of fuel.

The Scottish Government has produced Home Fire Safety advice which can be found here: Home fire safety - Fire and rescue - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . SFRS also have fire safety advice relating to candle use on their website: Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (firescotland.gov.uk) .

Waste collection is the responsibility of individual local authorities and they are best placed to make decisions regarding the provision of waste and recycling services in their area.

The Scottish Government supports strong trade unions in Scotland and recognises the importance of collective bargaining in improving terms and conditions, and respects the right to strike. However, we would always encourage unions and employers to work collaboratively to resolve disputes.

Information on committee processes in relation to individual planning applications which are called in by Scottish Ministers is not recorded centrally. The figures below are the collective total of applications called in by Scottish Ministers per year from 2012 to date. This includes cases called in at points before, during and after consideration by a council committee, and also those where the council’s consideration had been delegated to planning officials.

The Scottish Government is taking the necessary steps to support NHS staffing capacity. The Scottish Government is continually in contact with all NHS Health Boards to ensure that services have sufficient support to deal with COVID-19, manage other risks and resume planned services as safely and effectively as possible.

Although Staffing levels across NHS Scotland have increased for ten consecutive years, we are fully aware of the challenges that Boards and frontline staff are experiencing. That is why we announced a £1 billion-backed NHS Recovery Plan and a record £300 million of investment last winter to support Health Boards and their staff.

This includes the 1,000 Health Care Support Workers brought in over the last winter and recent successes that has saw c230 nurses from overseas taken up roles within Boards in Scotland and our commitment to invest a record £11 million in the lifetime of this parliament in further domestic and international recruitment.

We are in the final stages of agreeing a stretching target for international recruitment of nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals with NHS Scotland Boards for 2022-23.

A review of the content of the Scottish Health Survey took place between 18 July and 26 September 2022. The review asked users to explain their use of the current survey content and provided the opportunity for them to suggest any new questions, which could include questions relating to eating disorders. A report will be published in advance of the 2024 survey reporting the findings of the review and decisions on the survey content going forwards.

It is important that NHS Boards can call on additional staffing when required, in order to deal with the exigencies of the service. It is for NHS Boards to decide when the additional support represented by agency staffing is required but the Scottish Government is clear that Boards should always make use of NHS bank staff as a first choice and the majority of additional staffing needs are met through NHS Scotland’s well established bank system. These act as, de facto, in house agencies. We have over 35,000 nurses registered on NHS Scotland Staff Banks. It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to establish a commercial agency. Combined spending on all agency staff (medical and nursing) remains less than 1% of the overall NHS Scotland budget.

It is important that NHS Boards can call on additional staffing when required, in order to deal with the exigencies of the service. It is for NHS Boards to decide when the additional support represented by agency staffing is required but the Scottish Government is clear that Boards should always make use of NHS bank staff as a first choice and the majority of additional staffing needs are met through NHS Scotland’s well established bank system. These act as, de facto, in house agencies. We have over 35,000 nurses registered on NHS Scotland Staff Banks. It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to establish a commercial agency. Combined spending on all agency staff (medical and nursing) remains less than 1% of the overall NHS Scotland budget.

NHS Boards are expected to provide those who have a survived a stroke with the appropriate multi-disciplinary assessment, and are required to demonstrate their provision of access to acute therapy assessment during Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme (SSIP) annual reviews. Exploring ways to drive improvements in early access to assessment and rehabilitation is a key aspect of the work underway to develop the refreshed Stroke Improvement Plan.

As you will know our hospitals, particularly across the central belt, are under significant pressure due to the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic which is impacting on A&E performance.

We recognise the good work underway in each of our Health Boards to implement performance improvement measures. Although NHS Tayside is of a comparable size to some of the other central belt Health Boards, there are substantial differences between the Boards, particularly in terms of geography and population demographics.

NHS Tayside is regularly one of the higher performing mainland Health Boards, with well-established processes and models of care. Through our new National Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative we are actively encouraging the sharing of learning and good practice between Health Boards. To help facilitate this, we are hosting a learning event on 19 October where representatives from all of Scotland’s Health Boards will participate.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10578 on 27 September 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