Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government continues to work with its partners and key stakeholders, including Public Health Scotland, health boards, and across the Four Nations to prepare Scotland to identify and respond to future infectious disease and pandemic threats. This work builds on existing health protection approaches, including the 2011 UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy , and a now enhanced respiratory surveillance programme.

National preparedness arrangements include stockpiles of clinical consumables, PPE, medicines, a contract for access to a pandemic influenza vaccine – and a national pandemic influenza service at 4 Nation level to distribute antivirals. NHS Boards have pandemic flu plans based on guidance – and are also expected to plan locally on a multi-agency basis with Resilience Partnerships and/or HSCPs. The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed last year, giving the Scottish Government new powers to respond to public health emergencies. This includes provisions for education, higher and further education, care services, housing, justice.

The Scottish Government established the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness to bring together scientists and technical experts to advise the Scottish Government on the future risks from pandemics and how best to approach these. The final report will be presented later this year.

Preparation for outbreaks of infectious disease is an ongoing part of health protection. That work is led by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care but the breadth of response required to respond to pandemic events is laid out in the 2022 Strategic Framework Update for COVID-19 and the four-harms approach to decision-making used by the Scottish Government for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the UK Government and the other Devolved Administrations on a range of risks including pandemic preparedness. The Scottish Government works closely with the cross-government Pandemic Disease Capabilities Board to keep Scotland’s readiness up to date.

The costs of the NHS Pension Scheme (Scotland) for employers are determined by the quadrennial scheme valuation. The latest valuation, the 2020 valuation, is currently in progress and will determine the new employer contribution rate effective from 1 April 2024. There are many variables which can impact the final result of the valuation, not least the SCAPE discount rate which is still to be confirmed by HM Treasury, therefore it is too early to predict the impact on employer costs at the present time.

The Scottish Government remains engaged with the review process, however, the responsibility for the implementation of the recommendations falls to NHS Highland, working closely with the local community, NHS 24, the Scottish Ambulance Service and other agencies as recommended in Professor Ritchie’s original review.

Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) are being developed by the Scottish Government in line with the Fisheries Act 2020, and will be published by the end of 2024, as set out in the Joint Fisheries Statement. The 21 Scottish-led FMPs will reflect the urgency of climate mitigation by outlining the policies the Scottish Government is developing to ensure sustainable fisheries. These policies include measures to reduce bycatch and entanglement, such as the Future Catching Policy.

FMPs will also be an important tool for climate adaptation, because FMPs will state the maximum sustainable yield for a stock, where this is available, and include an overview of the health and location of a stock over time. FMPs will be revisited at least every six years, which will support management of our fish stocks as the marine environment changes.

The development of the FMPs will include discussions with our core stakeholder Fisheries Management and Conservation (FMAC) Group. We will also be addressing climate change from a fisheries perspective through the FMAC Climate Change Subgroup and we aim to develop a work programme in partnership with concrete actions for the industry, the Scottish Government, academia and others to take in order to mitigate the impacts fishing has on climate change .

The commercial value of advertising space was calculated by assigning a standard advertising rate attributable to similar footfall areas per RVM. The calculations are commercially sensitive and are not published. “Allocated to society”, in this case, means the Return Point Operator who would receive the value for their advertising space. This figure has not been revised.

The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the 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. The Scottish Government has no plans to establish a national pothole fund.

The overall funding package for local authorities of almost £12.7bn for 2022/23 represents a rise of £1.06bn or 9.2% in cash terms, or 6.3% in real terms compared with 2021/22.

The next statistical release on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland will be published by the Scottish Government on 23 March 2023.

Additionally, the Scottish Government publish a calendar of forthcoming statistical releases. The calendar can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/official-statistics-forthcoming-publications/

Evusheld ® was developed and tested before the emergence of the Omicron variant. The RAPID C-19 group and the COVID-19 UK expert panel have considered a full range of evidence, including clinical trial data, in vitro (in the lab) analysis and observational studies, and have advised that there is insufficient evidence available to support procurement and deployment of Evusheld ®. As a result, there is currently no established NHS supply arrangement for Evusheld ® in the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC, as part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)) have agreed to maintain the collaboration that started through RAPID C-19 by collaborating on a single health technology appraisal (STA) of Evusheld ® for the prevention of COVID-19. NICE and the SMC will produce separate guidance and advice documents, but the recommendations will be aligned. Draft guidance was published on 16 February 2023, and does not recommend its use. Final guidance on the STA is expected to be published in June 2023.

There has been a significant, long term move towards procedures carried out as day-cases and reducing lengths of stay, to the benefit of patients meaning less time spent in hospital.

This includes significant progress in the delivery of same-day discharge arthroplasty, allowing patients to be safely discharged home on the same day as their procedure, increasing capacity within Orthopaedics.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery will enable us to see 140,000 new outpatients each year, an increase of 55,500 procedures per year by the end of this plan - a 20% increase over pre-Covid levels – and Specialty Delivery Groups have been set up to drive opportunities across regions on same day surgery, for example in gynaecology pathways.