Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05015 on 7 January 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

Attrition rates vary each year across all degree programmes, it is therefore not possible to predict attrition rates for future cohorts. However, we have observed that course completion rates for pre-registration nursing programmes have been steadily improving year-on-year, and we anticipate that this trend will continue.

The Chief Executive of NHS Scotland and Director-General Health and Social Care put in place a temporary pause on filling vacancies not currently advertised within Health and Social Care Directorates from 4 April 2022. The pause will remain in place for no longer than necessary, while consideration is given to the future pandemic response.

The exchange of factually accurate patient information is pivotal to the delivery of high quality, safe, patient centred healthcare whether it takes place locally, regionally, nationally in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK. Normal practice would be that where a patient is referred by a specialist team in Scotland to a specialist team in another part of the UK, the clinician responsible for their care would write a formal referral letter which would include details of the patients diagnosis, investigations already undertaken, treatments pursued so far and any proposed treatment plan or specific request of the team to which they are referring. It is also often the case that the referring clinician may provide some further detail as part of a Multidisciplinary Team Discussion, Virtual Consultation or telephone call.

On the occasion that the treatment is unplanned, the NHS facility providing the treatment should contact the individual’s GP Practice, in Scotland, directly to exchange key information from their patient record. NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) are available to support Scottish practices and the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to facilitate the sharing of records and or important information about the patient.

Systems integration and providing greater access for the public to their health and care data is a priority for Scottish Government and our ambitions are set out in our Digital Health and Care Strategy which was published in October 2022 and available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-digital-health-care-strategy/

The Genetic Laboratory Major Service review considered the workforce requirements for our future genomics capabilities in NHS Scotland. A link to the report is available here:https://www.nss.nhs.scot/specialist-healthcare/specialist-services/genetic-and-molecular-pathology-laboratories/

In line with the recommendations from the Major Service Review, the NSD Transformation Team will consider the workforce planning requirements to implement the recommendations from the report in developing the action plan.

Over the coming months we will be expanding the membership of our Scottish Genomics Leadership Group(SGLG) and relevant work stream to include a wider pool of stakeholders than those currently on the SGLG. This expanded structure will consider the recommendations from the Major Service Review as well as considerations for further genomics expansion.

One of the workstreams will lead on workforce planning and will be done in partnership with relevant Trade Union representatives.

The latest forecasts produced by the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecast that £15 million will be spent on Self-Isolation Support Grants in 2022-23. The Commission will be publishing new forecasts on 31 May 2022 following engagement with Scottish Government. We will continue to collect and publish monthly Management Information on applications, awards, and expenditure.

This information is not held centrally.

SEEMiS may be able to provide this information if you contact them directly.

This information is not held centrally.

SEEMiS or local authorities may be able to provide this information if you contact them directly.

Delivery partners hold the ScotSpirit budget enabling them to book breaks for unpaid carers and low-income families with participating businesses from October 2021 to December 2022. Therefore, the budget is spent with business as and when breaks are booked and taken rather than a set number of voucher being available for issue.

Allotments and their provision are the responsibility of local authorities. That is set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. However, since 2012, the Scottish Government has allocated more than £1.6 million to directly support and increase the land that is available for community growing.

This funding includes:

The Community Growing Fund, a grant scheme for the years 2019/2020 and 2020/21, providing a total of £80,000 to local community growing groups public bodies and third sector organisations.

For the years 2016 to 2022, nearly £490,000 has been allocated to various growing groups in Scotland, amongst them are Trellis, Social Farms and Gardens and Grow Green.

Funding to the Green Action Trust (previously Central Scotland Green Network (CSGN)) to allocate grants to projects that aim to increase the amount of land for community growing. Since 2012 around £1.04 million has been provided.