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State Secretary Marko Štucin and I had a constructive meeting last year during which we discussed areas for collaboration including equalities and AI.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussions. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.

The Minister and I had a constructive meeting last year in Paris during which we discussed the scope for further developing Franco-Scottish relations and discussed the challenges of welcoming refugees following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussions. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.

The Minister and I had a constructive meeting last year during which we discussed Ireland’s Basic Income for Artists Scheme and the Euro 2028 football championships.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussions. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.

The topic of Scottish Independence was not discussed at this meeting, which was about the important role of the cultural national collections, their current challenges post-pandemic and future plans.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been running the monthly COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) for almost three years. Since 2021 this survey has included long COVID questions and has provided high-level estimates for Scotland of the number of people with long COVID by duration.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is now reviewing its approach to COVID-19 surveillance, and survey data collection has been paused since mid-March. The then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf MSP, wrote to the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 8 March to express his concern about the delay in deciding the future of the survey, which will result in a gap in the provision of data on long COVID in the first quarter of the 2023-24 financial year. We are in touch with UKHSA to clarify the details of the updated scope, design and implementation plans for CIS, which will inform our planning for local surveillance.

Our Chief Scientist Office has funded the Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) long COVID study. EAVE II forms part of our Scottish Respiratory Surveillance Programme. This is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland to identify adults at greatest risk of developing long COVID. The study was able to identify cases of long COVID in Scotland using routinely collected clinical data from almost the entire adult Scottish population. The clinical data derived from electronic health records, comprising GP records (coded, free text and sick note data), hospital data, GP Out-of-Hours data, outpatient data, NHS 24 data, medication data and mortality data. The University has drawn on this work to publish an initial report on the estimated prevalence of long COVID among adults in Scotland, titled ‘ Identifying Long Covid Using Electronic Health Records: A National Observational Cohort Study in Scotland ’ . Please note that these findings are preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed.

The study team acknowledge that their estimated prevalence findings are lower than estimates derived from surveys such as the COVID-19 Infection Survey and Scottish Health Survey, in which participants self-report having long COVID, rather than long COVID being diagnosed by a medical professional. They also acknowledge that their findings are likely to underestimate total cases because not everyone with long COVID will attend their GP, and not all cases or symptoms will be recorded. However, the report still makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of long COVID prevalence and distribution in Scotland.

We are working closely with Public Health Scotland to develop an approach and methodology for the longer-term surveillance of long COVID, which will in turn inform the planning of health service provision for people with long COVID.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any evidence of distance decay in relation to health outcomes in Scotland.

Responsibility for service delivery rests locally with Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs). For NHS Boards that cover remote and rural settings, local planning is expected to take account of the particular needs of these communities. Officials engage with Health Boards and HSCPs on a regular basis to review health outcomes.

The Scottish Government published its formal response to the recommendations of the Independent Review into the Delivery of Forensic Mental Health Services on 29 October 2021. The response can be viewed at the following link: Independent Review into the Delivery of Forensic Mental Health Services: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government does not plan to conduct an inquiry into recorded incidents of assault against on-duty Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) workers. SAS has assured the Scottish Government that they have a range of measures in place to help protect staff, including training and risk assessments. We will continue to work closely with SAS to monitor the safety and wellbeing of their staff.

NHSScotland has joined the multi-agency Your Safety Matters (YSM) initiative, led by Police Scotland. YSM aims to minimise incidents of violence and aggression in workplaces, through campaigns, sharing resources and good practice.

Abuse towards NHS staff is unacceptable, and the courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with those who carry out such appalling behaviour on emergency workers.

The Director General and I had a constructive meeting in November last year during which we exchanged views on the depopulation challenges that both Scotland and Spain face and, following from the work done recently by officials in the Scottish Government’s Population and Migration team, proposed a policy exchange so that we can learn from the expertise in both countries.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussion. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.

The information requested is published by the Scottish Social Services Council and is already available in the public domain. The details can be viewed via the following link:

Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2021 Workforce Data (sssc.uk.com)