Chamber and committees

The NHS Scotland already has in place the electronic transfer of prescriptions between general practice and community pharmacy.

Our NHS Recovery Plan and Programme for Government commits to investing in developing new digital solutions such as ePrescribing and eDispensing to make the prescribing process paperless which will free up capacity for healthcare professionals so that they can see more patients and making it easier for patients to access their medicines quickly and safely.

The timeline is a matter for Lord Hardie. Updates on the publication of his Report will be provided on the Inquiry website at the appropriate time, a link to which is included below. 

Home Page - The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry

The Scottish Government’s Social Enterprise Strategy was launched in 2016 and sets out a wide-ranging, ambitious and long-term programme to develop the potential of Scotland's social enterprise sector.

The latest Social Enterprise Action Plan was published on 24 March 2021 and covers the period 2021-24 and is available at: Social enterprise: action plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

To deliver the plan, we will spend over £5 million this financial year supporting Social Enterprises across the country. Some of the projects we have committed to support over the next three years include:

• Doubling our funding for Social Enterprise in Schools to almost £2m to ensure that by 2024 every school child will have the opportunity to engage with a social enterprise project in their school career, introducing the benefits of the social enterprise model to young people across Scotland.
• Investing an additional £1.5m to build on the successful programme of support offered through Adapt and Thrive which helps community organisations wanting to diversify their income streams.
• Investing £1.5 million to create a clear pipeline for social enterprises from conception to the international market, with a focus on ethical opportunities in emerging markets such as Africa and South East Asia.

Access to pulmonary rehabilitation is a key recommendation in national clinical guidelines which we expect NHS Boards to follow. Improving access to pulmonary rehab is also a key commitment within our Respiratory Care Action Plan (RCAP), which can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/respiratory-care-action-plan-scotland-2021-2026/ .

The Plan sets out our vision for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions. As we develop the work plan for the implementation of the RCAP, we will be liaising with key stakeholders within health and social care, including the chief executive.

As part of the work to deliver the Framework for supporting people through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic, we have undertaken a significant period of scoping and engaging with NHS boards. A recent self-assessment tool was sent to all teams providing rehabilitation services, including health, social and third sector teams providing pulmonary rehabilitation. Results from this are being analysed and recommendations will form the basis of a work plan to improve access and outcomes.

Dental services have not been stopped during the pandemic period. Dental practices were initially closed with urgent and emergency dental care provided through urgent dental care centres. Dental practices reopened following a phased remobilisation programme which culminated on 1 November with dental teams able to provide the full range of NHS care and treatment to patients. While it is the case patient numbers continue to be less than pre-pandemic - as dental teams are required to operate within strict infection, prevention and control guidance - pregnant women and nursing mothers who required urgent or emergency dental care would still be seen during the pandemic period.

The information requested is not held centrally. Statistics on patients waiting for pulmonary rehabilitation are not held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). Waiting times statistics relating to specific conditions a patient is waiting to be seen for are not held centrally.

Statistics relating to the waits patients experience for new outpatient appointments and inpatient or day case admission at specialty level are published up to 30 June 2021 using the link https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times-inpatients-day-cases-and-new-outpatients-31-august-2021/ .

The information requested is not held centrally. Statistics on patients waiting for pulmonary rehabilitation are not held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). Waiting times statistics relating to specific conditions are not held centrally by the PHS Waiting Times Team.

Scotland has a long history of welcoming people of all nationalities, including those from Hong Kong. We recognise the positive contribution of people who choose to make Scotland their home. They are assets to our society and communities: sharing their culture, building businesses, working in our public services, volunteering their skills and making friendships. We have recently published a British National (Overseas) Welcome Pack to support people in their integration into our communities.

The Chinese Government’s decision to implement the National Security Law in Hong Kong is of deep concern to the Scottish Government. This action seriously undermines the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’, which guarantees Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, and will irreversibly diminish the rights and freedoms of its people.

We support the UK Government’s commitment to providing a bespoke pathway to citizenship for British National (Overseas) citizens from Hong Kong and their dependants and we welcome those who have chosen to move to Scotland.

In 2021-22 the Scottish Government allocated £11.7 billion to authorities and it is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their own budgets and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Some planning applications will have longer decision times due to their scale and complexity. Planning decision timescales have also inevitably been affected by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020-21, despite these impacts, authorities determined 149 planning applications for electricity generation developments.

The performance of the system is not the sole responsibility of planning authorities and everyone involved in planning must play their part in ensuring that the system functions effectively and efficiently.

The resourcing and performance of the planning system remain key priorities. That is why in 2019 we published a consultation which proposed making changes to the planning fee regime to increase the financial resources available to authorities. That work was paused during the pandemic but has recently been recommenced and we will work with the High Level Group on Planning Performance to take it forward.

Scottish Ministers have kept the UK Government updated on our plans for a public inquiry on the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and look forward to receiving further details of the UK Government’s plans. These exchanges have been in the course of routine ongoing contact between the two governments on COVID-19, and not the subject of separate, minuted, meetings.