Seòmar agus comataidhean

We expect Health Boards to fully engage with the review process that takes place via the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme. The Board review process allows for an evaluation of stroke service performance, identification of areas of concern and agrees steps to implement local action plans to improve the delivery of stroke care, including rehabilitation.

NHS Boards are expected to demonstrate rehabilitation provision in a variety of settings, including inpatient and community settings and at a range of intensities. Boards must also demonstrate that there is a clear pathway for people who have had strokes to re-engage with stroke rehabilitation services as appropriate.

We are also working with rehabilitation stakeholders and Public Health Scotland to develop empirical measures of rehabilitation and measures of patient experience, to enable us to better assess the effectiveness of rehabilitation delivery.

The Scottish Government places great importance on community sports and leisure facilities. They are crucial to the wellbeing of all our country and most importantly, for our children and young people to be healthy and active.

We are fully aware that local authorities are facing challenging financial circumstances, particularly in the maintenance and operating of facilities such as swimming pools, largely due to energy costs and other cost of living pressures. In 2023-24, East Lothian Council will receive £221.5 million to fund local services, which equates to an extra £8.1 million to support vital day to day services or an addition 3.8 per cent compared to 2022-23.

Decisions on future local government finance settlements will be the subject of negotiations with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities and will be announced as part of the outcome of future Scottish Budgets.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

sport scotland are supporting Scottish Swimming to undertake the Scottish Swimming Facilities Project. This is a detailed piece of work to accurately understand the current pool provision and life cycle, and to predict the landscape in the short, medium, and long term. This important piece of work can help inform future investment decisions both nationally and locally to ensure sustainable facilities, in the right places, to serve their local communities’ needs.

The Scottish Government notes the recommendations of the Barnardo’s report, The Missing Link: Social Prescribing for Children and Young People.

Community link workers (CLWs) have a key role for social prescribing in primary care settings. We have not prescribed a specific model for CLW services. Health and Social Care Partnerships base their services on local priorities, and this would include the inclusion of children in CLW services.

We expect local health and social care services to refer or signpost people who have experienced a stroke to the appropriate local services. We are not aware of any barriers to health and social care services referring to third sector services.

We are grateful to third sector organisations, such as Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland and the Stroke Association, for their continued work in supporting people living with stroke across Scotland, and both organisations contributed to the development of the Stroke Improvement Plan.

The Scottish Government has committed over £1.9 billion to the City Region Deals programme and its associated investments. Information on the individual projects funded through the growth deals are outlined in their associated deal agreements.

An underlying principle of producer responsibility policies for packaging, covering the existing package recovery notes (PRN) system, reforms to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging, and the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for single use drinks containers, is that a producer should not be double-obligated for the same item of packaging.

This means that drinks containers in scope of DRS will not be in scope of EPR reforms. Packaging EPR reforms will replace the existing PRN system for household packaging waste. All three producer responsibility systems operate across the whole of the UK.

Impact assessments have been conducted for both DRS and packaging EPR. Consideration is given to cumulative effect of the proposed reforms and any interactions they may have with other regulations. Impact assessments are available at:

Packaging EPR: Impact Assessment (defra.gov.uk)

The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 (legislation.gov.uk)

DRS: Deposit return scheme - Managing waste - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Social Security Scotland know some people have waited too long for a Child Disability Payment decision to be made, including some of those with cancer. Urgent improvement action has been taken by Social Security Scotland to speed up processing times. The latest published figures show around 25% more applications were processed in the last quarter than any other since the benefit launched. Social Security Scotland expect further impact of our improvement work to reflect in the coming months.

Social Security Scotland has a fast-track process for people who are terminally ill, called Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI), they aim to make decisions within seven working days of receiving a completed SRTI application and Benefits Assessment for Special Rules in Scotland (BASRiS) form.

We recognise the incredible contribution that all of Scotland’s unpaid carers make to our communities as well as the pressures many carers are under. We are implementing our National Carers Strategy which sets out a cross-government approach to carers issues, including through social care, social security policies and supporting carers in employment and education.

Carers in Scotland already benefit from extra financial support through our Carer's Allowance Supplement, which by the end of this year will have provided eligible carers with £3,300 above Carer’s Allowance since its introduction.

Our Carer Support Payment will begin to replace Carer’s Allowance this month, providing unpaid carers with income in recognition of their caring role and helping them access opportunities outside of caring. Carers in Scotland getting Carer’s Allowance and Carer Support Payment will continue to benefit from Carer’s Allowance Supplement.

Adult social care workers delivering direct care in commissioned services will see their pay increase to a minimum of £12 per hour from April 2024. This increase represents an increase of over 10% from the £10.90 minimum rate that was introduced in April 2023.

I would encourage anyone who is struggling due to a caring role to contact their social work department or local carer centre, and speak to them about what help they may be able to offer.

The Scottish Government has committed to introducing a new Human Rights Bill in the current Parliamentary year. The consultation on the proposals closed on 5 October 2023 and the responses received are currently being independently analysed.

The Human Rights Bill will incorporate a wide range of internationally recognised human rights belonging to everyone in Scotland, into Scots law within the limits of devolved competence. Our proposals would mean that for the first time in our domestic legal framework, duty bearers have to comply with the rights in the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (including the right to health) and actively consider the rights in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities when making decisions and delivering public services.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all adults who require rehabilitation have timely access to the right information and services by the end of 2025 through our Once for Scotland Rehabilitation Approach. This is supported by NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships, encouraging cross-sector working with third and leisure sectors to support community-based services and supported self-management. We are working with key partners to deliver this.

The Scottish Government closely monitor excess deaths statistics and work closely with our analytical partners Public Health Scotland (PHS) and National Records of Scotland (NRS) to understand the causes of excess deaths.

NRS are responsible for publishing Scotland’s excess deaths statistics, which includes breakdowns by cause of death.

A British Medical Journal editorial from the four UK Chief Medical Officers acknowledged that the UK, like many other European countries is currently experiencing substantial excess mortality. This editorial highlights the reasons behind this excess mortality are likely to be multifactorial, including persisting direct and indirect effects of COVID-19, surges in flu and respiratory infections, significant pressures on NHS acute services, and reductions in secondary prevention as an inevitable part of the response to COVID-19.