Chamber and committees

The consultation on the draft national Good Food Nation Plan sets out the indicators and other measures that will be used to measure progress towards achieving the six Outcomes set out in the Plan. This included extending the Scottish Government’s existing target to halve childhood obesity by 2030 to read: “To aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce associated diet-related inequalities”.

The Scottish Government is undertaking work to develop further indicators of progress towards meeting the Outcomes. This work will take account of the responses received to the consultation which suggested indicators that might be used.

Once the final version of the Plan is published there is a legislative requirement to report on the progress towards achieving the Outcomes set out in the national Good Food Nation Plan every two years and to review and, if necessary, revise the Plan within five years.

Scottish Government have long advocated for restrictions on the broadcast advertising of less healthy food and drink before 9pm. We welcome the announcement that the UK Government intend to introduce these restrictions next year. We continue to work with the UK Government to further understand the implications of this policy and its implementation for Scotland.

As set out in our 2018 Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery plan, we remain committed to developing proposals to strengthen outdoor advertising restrictions for food that is high in fat, salt or sugar.

The Scottish Government is committed to support Health and Social Care Partnerships and their local services deliver on our National Mission to save and improve lives affected by problem drug use. This includes the implementation of harm reduction initiatives including needle and syringe programmes and improved access to opioid substitution therapy (OST).

Our broad principle is that if providing safe equipment to a person is likely to reduce the risk of harm to themselves or others, there should be no question of that provision. We continue to provide direction and funding to local areas to implement the Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards, and Standard 4 in particular states that everyone at risk, including those who inject drugs, should be able to access a wide range of harm reduction services – for example, needles and syringes, injecting risk assessments, wound care and naloxone.

Services across Scotland have developed flexible and targeted approaches to supplying Injecting Equipment Provision (IEP) by introducing more mobile and more flexible approaches (such as IEP vans) that actively go out to areas where they know people will use them.

The Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Standards, published on 31 May 2021 aim to improve access, choice and support to OST and to a range of linked support such as primary care, mental health treatment and advocacy for other services. Public Health Scotland reports annually on how local areas are achieving this. Its Benchmarking Reports are published each June and these include details of how access to OST and access to drug harm reduction measures are improving in local areas.

The Scottish Government welcomed the 2023 Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) report on handheld remote-controlled training devices that use static pulse as the stimulus. We are currently awaiting a further report from SAWC on a wider range of aversive dog training tools, including other types of electronic training collars. We will consider all their findings carefully as part of our ongoing commitment to improve and enhance animal welfare.

All long waits are regrettable, and we continue to work with Health Boards, including NHS Western Isles, to drive improvements in waiting times.

Public Health Scotland publishes data on NHS Waiting Times across NHS Scotland quarterly. This can be accessed using the following link: Stage of treatment waiting times - Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 30 June 2024 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland. The data for NHS Western Isles show:

Inpatient/Day-Case:

Ongoing waits: 371

Over 52 weeks: 1

Over 78 weeks: 0

New Outpatient Appointment:

Ongoing waits: 1,518

Over 52 weeks: 14

Over 78 weeks: 2

I understand from NHS Western Isles that 70% of Inpatient/Day-Case patients are currently listed within 12 weeks. However, a small number of patients are waiting longer due to medical unavailability or due to the timetable for visiting services.

NHS Western Isles expect to clear the majority of their backlog for New Outpatients in November 2024.

This is a matter for NHS Lothian. The information requested is not held centrally.

NatureScot and Scottish Forestry are currently putting together a project plan to build on the existing Ancient Woodland Inventory to develop the new National Register of Ancient Woodlands. The new National Register of Ancient Woodlands will be an important element of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy and Delivery plan, which will be published shortly.

No One Left Behind is our national approach to devolved employability services in Scotland. This approach sees a move away from nationally contracted provision to a model which empowers Local Employability Partnerships to lead the design and delivery of services in each Local Authority area.

Local Employability Partnerships work with employers, educational institutions and organisations to ensure that participants enter a positive destination which is right for them, at that time. As well as employment; education, training and volunteering are seen as positive destinations for participants, allowing for the development of skills in preparation to enter the labour market.

Between April 2019 and June 2024, 30,280 female participants started receiving No One Left Behind support (45% of all participants). Female participants account for the majority of participants in the 25 to 34 age group (56%), the 35 to 49 age group (59%), and the parental cohort (72% of all parents). Additionally, 30% of all female participants entered employment (8,935), 13% entered full time or higher education or training (4,063) and 15% gained a qualification (4,423).

We ensure that information and advice on the benefits that flexible working and other fair work practices bring to protected groups and employers are promoted regularly. For example, a recent Fair Work social media campaign covered those benefits including that diverse and inclusive workplaces are more creative, innovative and better at problem-solving.

The duration of access to psychological support for children and young people with cancer is led by clinical need.

In December 2022 Scottish Government committed to making recurring funding available to the existing specialist psychological support services for young people with cancer across Scotland. This commitment was successfully met in 2023-24 and continues to provide more certainty to these specialist roles.

The psychological support considerations regarding specialist workforce for children and young people with cancer is currently being reviewed by the Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC) as part of a wider workforce review. The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the MSN as their review continues.

The psychological support considerations regarding specialist workforce for children and young people with cancer are currently being reviewed by the Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC) as part of a wider workforce review.

This review includes making clear how the current workforce could be upskilled, as well as how the MSN will prioritise various roles across the entirety of the patient pathway to support psychological needs. The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the MSN as their review continues.