Chamber and committees

I am committed to ensuring that people with respiratory conditions receive timely access to high-quality care and treatment to enable them to live longer, healthier, and more independent lives.

The Respiratory Specialty Delivery Group, within the Centre for Sustainable Delivery is developing a number of national pathways for conditions including COPD, severe asthma, bronchiectasis and sleep apnoea. This work aims to improve referral processes, support earlier intervention and ensure that patients receive the right care, in the right place and at the right time.

We are also improving access to respiratory services, including pulmonary rehabilitation through digital, community and specialist provision to increase capacity and reduce variation across Scotland. This includes work with Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland to develop pulmonary rehabilitation resources and a digital-first offer through their My Lungs, My Life platform, and setting up pulmonary rehabilitation pilots in central and rural areas, helping to ensure people can access consistent support regardless of where they live.

In addition, recommendations from the Long Term Conditions Advisory Group on Respiratory Conditions which will inform the Long-Term Conditions Strategy, due to be published in March 27. This will help inform future action to support equitable and sustainable access to services, including respiratory care.

More broadly, the commitments set out in the 2026-27 Budget will deliver record investment of £22.5 billion for health and social care, supporting delivery of planned care and increasing capacity across NHS Scotland. We have invested an additional £100 million this year to build on progress made through the NHS Operational Improvement Plan and have announced a further £90 million to support those waiting longest for treatment and create additional capacity across the healthcare system.

The Scottish Government recognises the potential of AI to improve outcomes, support service renewal and increase productivity across health and social care. The Programme for Government includes a five-year commitment to "Develop an AI Hub to accelerate safe adoption of AI across the health and care system." The purpose of the AI Hub for Scotland is to provide greater support for organisations navigating the challenges of deploying AI safely and effectively and to develop common approaches to accelerate progress in high impact use cases.

Work is underway to support the safe adoption of AI at a national scale. For example, the Chest X-ray AI programme, approved through the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) pathway in July 2026, will implement and evaluate an AI-enabled lung cancer diagnostic pathway across NHS Scotland to support earlier diagnosis and treatment.

The NHS Scotland Innovation Hubs support the development, testing and scaling of innovative technologies, including AI. By working with staff, patients and communities, they help address real-world challenges, build evidence for decision-making, and ensure technologies are evaluated safely and robustly. Their work helps to create the conditions for safe and effective adoption of AI.

The Scotland’s Places of Worship Fund will operate as a pilot until March 2027. The pilot will provide evidence on demand, impact and delivery arrangements to help inform any future decisions on longer-term support for Scotland’s places of worship. The Scottish Government intends to continue supporting the sector to ensure that Scottish Places of Worship are not disadvantaged by the UK Government decision to end the UK-wide provision.

Decisions regarding the future use of places of worship are matters for the relevant faith bodies.

Regarding the Scotland’s Places of Worship Fund, this is separate from Historic Environment Scotland’s existing grant programmes.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-01941 on 19 August 2026. 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.

The Scottish Government has invested over £40m over the past five years to support cancer services and improve waiting times for treatment. In response to oncology pressures, we have committed to additional funding for chemotherapy services, including for lung cancer. This funding will reach up to £10.5m per annum by 2027, with £3m released in 2023-24, £4.6m released in 2024-25, £6.6m in 2025-26 and £10.5m this financial year.

Through the Respiratory Care Action Plan and wider long-term conditions work, the Scottish Government is strengthening prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services for people living with serious respiratory conditions, including severe asthma, COPD, interstitial lung disease and sleep apnoea, while working with NHS Boards and third-sector partners to improve access to care across Scotland.

In the last three years, the Scottish Government has provided NHS Dumfries and Galloway with baseline funding as follows.

2026/27 - £462.8 million

2025/26 - £425.4 million

2024/25 - £364.7 million

Whilst the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care support policy in Scotland, the delivery of mental health services is the responsibility of local territorial Health Boards and Integration Joint Boards (IJBs). We expect Health Boards and IJBs to provide high-quality mental health services to their local areas that meet the needs of their communities.

In addition to this, £1,427,339 has been allocated to Third Sector organisations in the NHS Dumfries and Galloway area through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. The following amounts have been provided in each year:

2026-27 - £450,372

2025-26 - £532,303

2024-25 - £444,664

The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults supports a wide range of valuable community mental health projects, including those focused on men’s mental health and suicide prevention. It aims to build resilience, reduce the need for clinical interventions and improve mental wellbeing within communities.

The Fund is distributed in all 32 local authority areas of Scotland by Third Sector Interface (TSI) organisations who, working in collaboration with other local partners, are responsible for determining and allocating the funding to local community initiatives which support mental health and wellbeing. This is based on local priorities and in line with their local partnership plans.

The latest published National Records of Scotland data on life expectancy at birth in Scotland (by council area) for the 5 year period covering 2020-2024, shows that for Dumfries and Galloway males in the 20% least deprived areas are expected to live 80.5 years, compared to those in the 20% most deprived areas who are expected to live 71.3 years – a difference of 9.2 years. Life expectancy at birth for males in Dumfries and Galloway in 2020-2024 was virtually the same as the male life expectancy for Scotland (around 77 years).

The evidence is clear that health and life expectancy are closely linked to the circumstances in which we are born, grow up, live, work and age, known as the wider determinants of health. Last year, alongside COSLA, the Scottish Government published a Population Health Framework: a cross government and cross-sector approach, focussed on prevention, which aims to improve life expectancy while reducing the gap in life expectancy between the 20% most deprived areas and the national average, by 2035.

The Framework sets out the actions the Scottish Government and its partners are taking forward within the first two years: supporting healthy environments; good early years and education; good work and income; and equitable health and care.

The Scottish Government has made no direct estimate of the economic cost of poor male health outcomes in Dumfries and Galloway.

Last year, the Scottish Government and COSLA published the Population Health Framework, with a whole-system, cross-sector approach to improving life expectancy and reducing health inequalities, including action in key areas that disproportionately affect men.

As noted in the Framework, maximising access to workplace support services, including online self-help at Healthy Working Lives and case management through Working Health Services Scotland, has the potential to significantly contribute to men’s health outcomes, through prevention of worsening ill health and active participation in labour market.

As part of the Population Health Framework, Scottish Government monitors outcomes using a range of tools including the ScotPHO Profiles tool (ScotPHO profiles) and the Scottish Health Survey (Scottish Health Survey). Both can be used to view outcomes for males in Dumfries and Galloway, among other breakdowns.

Local communities will continue to play an important role in helping to shape services. Engagement with patients, service users, communities, elected representatives and local partners will remain central to decision-making, supported by appropriate governance, participation and locality arrangements.

The reforms are not intended to create a one-size-fits-all system. Planning across larger populations will enable greater sharing of workforce, expertise and capacity, while continuing to support tailored approaches that reflect local circumstances, including the unique needs of rural and island communities.

Over the next three months, we will undertake an intensive programme of engagement with local government and partners to consider how health, social care and wider public services can work more effectively together, make best use of public investment and improve outcomes for people and communities. Partnership working across local government, health, social care and community planning organisations will remain essential. Detailed arrangements will be developed as part of wider public service reform.

Payment claims of £9,477,806.74 from bus operators in relation to the bus fare cap in the Highlands and Islands have been received to 8th September. Claims for 1,509,749 passenger journeys, that have benefited from the cap, have been received to the same date for the Highlands and Island bus fare cap scheme.