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The Scottish Government recognise the benefits of Scottish Racing to the economy and the positive impact it has on employment in communities across Scotland.

While we have not undertaken a direct assessment of the potential economic growth that the Scottish horse racing sector can contribute to the economy, we are aware of Scottish Racing’s 2018 Annual Review, which highlights that the sport generates £306 million to the Scottish economy as well as sustaining 3,400 FTE jobs.

Through our emergency sports funding package, we provided Scottish Racing with £2.265 million, recognising the value of sustaining and supporting Scotland’s racecourses.

The Scottish Government continue to engage with Scottish Racing and look forward to their 2022 Review and Prospectus, which will be published shortly with updated figures.

As at the 31 March 2022, there were 491 live homelessness cases that had been assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness where it was stated that at least one member of the household was formerly a member of the armed forces.

Statistics on former armed forces status for households assessed as homeless are available by year in table 22 of the latest annual Homelessness in Scotland publication , with further analysis available in the Veterans' homelessness in Scotland data tables .

There has been no decision taken around excluding people receiving treatment for alcohol issues from Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Standard 1.

The MAT standards set out the standards of care people should expect for accessing treatment for drug problems and MAT standard 1 aims to ensure people receive same-day treatment wherever possible on the day they wish to begin medication assisted treatment.

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. A programme of leadership development has already started with local Directors and Deputy Directors of Public Health, along with Public Health Scotland, working with Scottish Government. A further programme of succession planning will be developed this year.

Scottish Directors of Public Health have been prioritised within the Scottish Government Leading to Change Programme for bespoke and sustainable leadership development support. Their knowledge, expertise and leadership are recognised as central to Scotland’s success in the recovery and re-building of the health of the nation post COVID.

Within Leading to Change we are also developing a programme of NHS Board CEO, Executive and Director Succession Planning. The Succession Planning workstream aims to create a diverse, values driven senior health workforce, by supporting existing and aspiring CEOs, Executives and Directors, and developing and implementing a consistent national approach to NHS Board Succession Planning that ensures a pipeline of candidates for future senior leadership roles, who are equipped to realise our ambitions as set out in the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan. We have created a Leadership Success Profile (LSP) for NHS CEO roles and will be creating an LSP for Executive and Director level roles in early 2023.

An expert Menopause and Menstrual Health Policy Working Group has been established to progress this action.

NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHS Highland did not participate in the extraction of data from the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE), so we were unable to provide general practice data on the prevalence of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for these Boards.

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. The group has gathered information from all local public health teams about their current workforce plans and issues. It will initially complete a baseline audit along with projections about future workforce needs. Considering opportunities to increase capacity in local public health teams will be a priority for the Group, Scottish Directors of Public Health, Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government. A leadership programme is already underway and some shared posts have been established across Scotland to increase capacity locally and nationally.

We understand the importance of appropriate staffing to provide high quality care for people with chronic pain. As set out in our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care published in March 2022, we are committed to supporting the delivery of new training pathways for pain management to enhance and expand our pain-skilled workforce.

In July 2022 we published our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which sets out the actions we are taking to improve care and support for people with chronic pain, including through developing the pain management workforce. In support of this we have established a new national multi-disciplinary Chronic Pain Education Group which is focused on developing and promoting resources to enhance the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals across Scotland.

In addition, we are working with the Faculty for Pain Medicine to support the development of new credentials to increase the availability of pain management specialists across our NHS. We are also supporting work to develop a credential for Advanced Care Practitioners in pain management which will support GPs, paramedics, Allied Healthcare Professionals and other key roles gain the knowledge and skills to provide holistic, effective support for people with chronic pain in their communities.

The National Clinical Skills for pharmacists programme supports registered pharmacists take on new and extended clinical roles, however it is the Independent Prescriber course which allows community pharmacists to qualify as Independent Prescribers. In 2020-2021 NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) commissioned a total of 115 Independent Prescriber (IP) places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2021.

In 2021-2022 NES commissioned a total of 222 IP places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2022.

The Pharmacist Independent Prescribing qualification takes on average 12 months to complete and courses run 4 times a year, therefore to date 111 community pharmacists from these cohorts have qualified as an Independent Prescriber.

This is a matter for Public Health Scotland. The information requested is not held centrally.