Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government do not hold this information.

Immigration is fully reserved to the UK Government and decisions relating to visa applications are solely for the Home Office, and they do not routinely share information about individual applications with Scottish Government.

As set out in Transport Scotland’s Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan, by 2035 Transport Scotland aims to have decarbonised the route to Stranraer and Girvan.

Decarbonisation of the line to Girvan and Stranraer forms a later phase of the rolling programme. Therefore it is at very early stage of development with a detailed implementation programme still to be developed.

We will respond fully to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee report, Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People , in line with the protocol to respond to the Committee two months from the date of publication.

Our absolute priority is ensuring the wellbeing and safety of displaced people from Ukraine. It is not the case that anyone was removed from accommodation against their will. A number of weeks ago, a small group of displaced people from Ukraine volunteered to change hotels to make rooms available for those arriving late at night into Edinburgh airport. The Resettlement Team ensured everyone understood this was a voluntary arrangement and that rooms were available should they decide to stay.

The Scottish Government is working to ensure that there is temporary accommodation available in cities where people may arrive late at night. This, as well as the temporary nature of some of the hotel availability means that in some cases, people will be requested to move into another hotel. The Scottish Government is working to reduce this need and to support people to move on from hotel accommodation into longer-term accommodation.

NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) publish spending in relation to PPE and Covid-19 testing kits as part of their annual accounts, which are published on their website.

NSS’ 2021-22 annual accounts, once finalised, will be published in line with their financial reporting timetable.

Detail not provided within their accounts would require to be requested from NSS.

A set of data tables for the most recent and historical hospital bed numbers for each board is available in the annual PHS publication, which was released on 28 September 2021, which be found at https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2021/

Data is available from financial year 2011-12 to financial year 2020-21. Hospital beds data is presented in the Table 4 – beds data file, and the measure of interest is Average Available Staffed Beds for All Specialties.

A set of data tables for the most recent and historical hospital bed numbers for each board is available in the annual PHS publication, which was released on 28 September 2021, which be found at https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2021/

Data is available from financial year 2011-12 to financial year 2020-21. Hospital beds data is presented in the Table 4 – beds data file, and the measure of interest is Average Available Staffed Beds for All Specialties.

In March 2022 we published, in partnership with CoSLA, the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care. The Strategy outlines our shared vision for the workforce, a sustainable, skilled workforce with attractive career choices where all are respected and valued for the work they do. This vision supports our tripartite ambition of Recovery, Growth and Transformation.

As part of this additional training places have been created in Gastroenterology through the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group. One extra post was created in 2014, with a further 10 having been established in 2022. All additional places have filled successfully.

The Scottish Government is also investing £11 million over the next 5 years in new national and international recruitment campaigns. As part of that investment, a new national Centre for Workforce Supply has been established which will support the development and implementation of resource strategies and services across the system.

To ensure all Health Boards have sufficient capacity, planning guidance has been issued to support the production of new Three Year Workforce Plans, supported by local systems’ workforce data.

As part of this all Health Boards must consider local population health needs and projected service demand, using that information to assess current staffing capacity and any relevant staffing gaps in all specialties including gastroenterology.

At national level, we will use this intelligence to inform new staffing projections for health and social care, which will be published in the coming year as part of the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.

If a patient chooses to purchase a test from a private provider, we recommend that they discuss the test’s suitability and their approach with their clinician. It would ultimately be the decision of their clinician whether to accept the result, based on the available evidence and their knowledge of the patient’s clinical history.

Specifically in relation to COVID-19 testing, as set out in our Test and Protect transition plan for any purpose which COVID-19 testing continues to be advised we will ensure that these tests remain available free of charge. This includes testing that is advised as part of a patient’s clinical care and to protect higher risk settings such as hospitals.

The #LiveableNHSBursary campaign is focused on the situation faced by latter years medical students studying in England which is something we are unable to comment on. Scottish domiciled medical students are eligible for the standard student support package which is comprised of tuition fees and living cost support throughout all 5 or 6 years of their medical degree. Furthermore in February 2002 a £350 loan uplift for 2022-23 for higher education students was announced. This means that the most disadvantaged students can access £8,100 per year through bursary and loan and the Scottish Government remains committed that the total student support package reaches the equivalent of the Living Wage over the next three years.

In Scotland medical ACT is currently used to fund Travel and Subsistence for students in all regions and this is monitored in light of the changing economic climate and impact of locus of student placements in remote/rural settings.

It is not possible to accurately estimate, from nationally held data, the current number of unpaid carers of people with dementia.

Data collected by Public Health Scotland (PHS) through their social care data collection provides some information on people receiving social care support who have dementia. However, while data on whether the person receives help from an unpaid carer is requested, this was recorded as ‘Unknown’ or was left blank for 48% of records in 2020-21. As such, it was not possible to accurately estimate the number of unpaid carers of people with dementia from this data.