Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government provided the following objectives to Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland covering financial years 2020-21 to 2024-25:

2024-25

Thrombectomy education

• Continued delivery of Stroke and Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) Assessment Training (STAT+) education sessions to NHS boards to incorporate recent changes to thrombectomy services and to ensure all new staff within NHS Boards have the required knowledge and skills in their role.
• Continued offer of delivery of thrombectomy information sessions to staff across the stroke pathway and out with acute services i.e. stroke rehabilitation units, allied health professions, community stroke nurses.
• Continued delivery of virtual Link up and Learn education sessions to healthcare professionals working in stroke across Scotland, ensuring allocated sessions for thrombectomy updates.
• Continued promotion of this programme and the Scottish Government approach to supporting the implementation of thrombectomy services at external engagement events, conferences and training sessions.
• Continued liaison with the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme Coordinator and the Scottish Government on outcomes achieved within Health Boards in relation to Thrombectomy Education to support Stroke Improvement Plan measures.
• In partnership with the Stroke Speciality Advisor to Chief Medical Officer and Stroke Improvement Programme Lead, carry out scoping of Face Arms Speech Time (FAST) education required across clinical staff groups e.g. Scottish Ambulance Service and Emergency D staff, and to implement FAST education to enhance recognition of stroke symptoms

2022-23

Social Isolation and Loneliness (SIAL) Winter funding package

• Translation of materials into Polish, Ukranian, Urdu and Punjabi. Proposed impact: Total 4,500 people reached (1,500 copies distributed and 3,000 impressions on the website.)
• Recruitment of Urdu and Punjabi-speaking volunteers. Impact: Work towards 10 bilingual volunteers recruited with 10 people supported initially. Total of 40 contacts per month (4 contacts per person per month).

Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest bystander aftercare project

• Engagement with Scottish Ambulance Service to agree effective contact mechanism
• Development of bystander support website landing page
• Development and refinement of debrief script
• Initiation of bystander support service
• Mixed methods evaluation

Thrombectomy education

• Redesign of the STAT + service to take into account recent changes in delivery of thrombectomy services to ensure education reflects practice.
• Continued delivery of STAT+ education sessions to Boards to incorporate recent changes to thrombectomy service.
• Offer of thrombectomy information sessions to staff across the stroke pathway and out with acute services i.e. stroke rehabilitation units, allied health professionals, community stroke nurses.
• Offer of delivery of a virtual re-fresher course to NHS boards to incorporate recent changes to thrombectomy service.
• Continued delivery of virtual Link up and Learn education sessions, twice per month, to healthcare professionals working in stroke across Scotland ensuring allocated sessions for thrombectomy updates.

Long Covid

• People with long COVID access support and proactive advice around self-management which promotes recovery, in parallel with wider clinical management and complementing NHS interventions.
• People with long COVID can access or be signposted to relevant sources of support including advice on social security entitlements or debt management.
• People living with long COVID accessing the service report positive outcomes, including reporting a positive experience of accessing the service, feeling listened to, feeling supported to look after their health and wellbeing, feeling supported to do the things that matter to them, and achieving personal outcomes identified as goals at the start of their engagement with the service.

Long Covid

• Integrate the long COVID application developed by Pogo studios in to the system that CHSS uses for clinical records, appointments, calls, collection of data and evaluation provision to service.
• Improve patient experience by reducing time between the acceptance of support and the onboarding of patients into the CHSS system.
• To enable improved reporting methods and data collection.
• Allow for automatic reporting to take place between GPs and the CHSS teams to ensure a shared care approach.
• Simplify data sharing elements.

2021-22

Social Isolation and Loneliness (SIAL) Summer fund

• To tackle Social Isolation and loneliness.

Tailored Talks

• We will collaborate to develop an innovative digital presentation platform which will deliver comprehensive information to patients and carers with a wide range of neurological conditions to support shared decision making, consent and signposting.
• Tailored Talks allows health and social care professionals and people working in third sector organisations to provide information which is tailored to each individual patient’s needs.
• This information can be shared on screen during face-to-face meetings/consultations, on paper (for people without access to digital technology or who are not keen to use it), and also remotely by emailed pdf or via weblinks so that patients and their carers can access the information on their mobile devices, PCs or laptop computers.

Thrombectomy education

• STAT+ and pre-requisites to be added to the National Stroke Education Pathway
• Finalisation of Thrombectomy booklet and compiled into a standardised national booklet for distribution to NHS boards
• The 6 month questionnaire to a named attendee in each session ensuring attendees have sustained and applied the learning will require to be delayed until thrombectomy services are established to ensure data collected is robust
• Extension of thrombectomy education project for 2022-23 to ensure continued delivery of STAT+ education sessions and refresher sessions.
• Consider roll out of STAT+ virtually during national lockdown
• Development of a virtual re-fresher course due to extended period of thrombectomy services roll out.

2020-21

Winter support funding (Covid) including top up

• Kindness Volunteer Programme – tackling social isolation and loneliness through kindness calls

Tailored Talks

• We will collaborate to develop an innovative digital presentation platform which will deliver comprehensive information to patients and carers with a wide range of neurological conditions to support shared decision making, consent and signposting.
• Tailored Talks allows health and social care professionals and people working in third sector organisations to provide information which is tailored to each individual patient’s needs.
• This information can be shared on screen during face-to-face meetings/consultations, on paper (for people without access to digital technology or who are not keen to use it), and also remotely by emailed pdf or via weblinks so that patients and their carers can access the information on their mobile devices, PCs or laptop computers.

Long Covid

• As a result of Covid-19, to support vulnerable individuals and those in need, to help communities respond to the needs and challenges they are experiencing, and protect the wellbeing of the people of Scotland.

Supporting the NHS in dealing with COVID-19

• The funding will allow Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland to develop its hospital discharge and community services for people with lung conditions, including those affected by Covid-19.
• The service will provide one to one support for patients in their homes over the phone and/or through video-conferencing.
• The funding will enable nurses and rehabilitation teams to expand digitally to meet the need for help. The funding will also see 400 of the charity’s volunteers equipped to enable them to provide vital 1-to-1 support to people to stay well at home.
• Specifically, through the Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland Covid-19 Discharge and Community Unit:

oCHSS nurses will facilitate quick discharge for people following treatment for Covid-19 by working with them to build their confidence to come home via telephone and VC support.

oPeople will be referred to CHSS rehabilitation support team to maintain any rehab exercises to help with breathing, mental health and management of the impact of Covid-19 on their long-term condition.

oThey would then be referred into one of the 140 local peer support groups for advice and support in the community.

• This funding will enable to CHSS to put the necessary systems in place to deliver this:

oCall centre set up and on costs - £10,000

o38 Laptops, headsets and IT support - £40,000

oPhones and laptops for 400 discharge support volunteers - £280,000

Thrombectomy education

• An evidence based online thrombectomy e-learning module as part of Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland’s proposed national thrombectomy education programme, and:
• A national thrombectomy education programme in the form of evidence based clinical education sessions in the care of patients who are eligible for, and may have undergone thrombectomy as a procedure post stroke to support NHS Boards throughout Scotland.

Within an extremely challenging financial context, the Scottish Government has made difficult funding decisions. Local authorities have received all the funding they have requested for flood protection in 2024-25 and, as such, £26 million from the Flood Risk Management Programme is being repurposed this financial year to support local government pay and avoid impactful industrial action. Decisions on the status of future projects will therefore be made by individual local authorities. We have sought assurances from local authorities through COSLA that redirection of this portion of the funding will not impact on councils progressing with their flood protection schemes as planned.

The Scottish Government’s Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics primarily focus on prosecutions and convictions in criminal courts. However,­­ they also include some non-court disposals, including police-issued Antisocial Behaviour Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) and COPFS-issued FPNs. The former are not used for shoplifting offences and the latter are only very rarely used for them. The most recent data show no FPNs issued for shoplifting since 2018-19.

Successive Scottish budgets have demonstrated Scotland’s commitment to addressing the climate change crisis, using all resources at our disposal to accelerate the just transition to a net zero, climate-resilient and biodiverse Scotland. The 2024-25 Budget committed £4.7 billion for activities with a positive impact on our climate change goals.

Use of ScotWind revenue is an action we would rather not take but must carefully consider given the fiscal challenges faced, given the limited options available under existing fiscal framework arrangements. We will seek to minimise usage of ScotWind in 2024-25 – just as we did in 2023-24.

The UK Government’s decision to introduce means-testing of Winter Fuel Payments in England and Wales in 2024-25 significantly reduces the annual funding available to the Scottish Government, by an estimated £140 million to £160 million. It is with deep regret and only following careful consideration that the Scottish Government has decided it must replicate that decision in Scotland and Pension Age Winter Heating Payment will therefore be payable to people over state pension age in receipt of certain benefits. Those benefits are Pension Credit, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Universal Credit, Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits (where the award is not less than £26 in respect of the tax year 2024-2025).

Payments of Pension Age Winter Heating Payment in 2024-25 will be made by the Department of Work and Pensions on behalf of the Scottish Government.

The number of police recorded crimes of shoplifting are published in Table 1 of the Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletins. The latest data is shown in the following table.

ScotRail Trains Ltd. regularly engages with a range of business groups to understand their views. All weekend, later evening and between-peak tickets remain available at off peak rates and many products are available which offer further discounts to passengers depending on their circumstances at all times of the day.

The latest labour productivity statistics for Scotland are available at Labour productivity statistics: 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). This reports estimates of gross value added (GVA) per hour worked and per job filled for the whole economy and for industry sectors, including results for the public administration and defence, education, and health and social care sectors. Results from the statistics release for 2022 were reported within the Public sector: economic overview publication available at Public sector: economic overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

An update on the Government’s Public Service Reform (PSR) programme will be shared with the Finance and Public Administration Committee setting out the details of a wide range of activity, including work to drive efficiency and effectiveness. A key component of this is the Public Bodies Programme where work is progressing to gather comparable and consistent data across public bodies to interrogate efficiency and effectiveness. This data and our wider engagement will drive a culture of continuous improvement across all public bodies.

Any violence – including that against public sector staff - is a concern and should not be tolerated. The Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland, with over £4 million of funding over the last two years, supports partner organisations, including the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, to deliver priority activity to help tackle violence. This is supporting the delivery of programmes to help prevent violence across Scotland, such as in the Falkirk Council area – and supports the delivery of the Mentors in Violence Prevention school-based programme, which is now operational in eight schools in the area.

We also worked with partners, including COSLA, education authorities, teaching unions and parents and carers representatives, to publish the Relationships and Behaviour in Schools National Action Plan, which includes specific actions in support of reducing violence and significant disruptive behaviour in schools.

The Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to doing all it can to reduce harm and deaths caused by drugs through our National Mission and addressing the twin public health challenges on alcohol and drugs.

Long-term thinking has been embedded into the National Mission, as we are investing in a comprehensive range of services, from prevention and early intervention to treatment and long-term recovery support. For example, implementing the Medicated Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards across Scotland, ensures high-quality treatment options for those affected by addiction will be met for years to come.

In addition, capital investment in residential rehabilitation has increased the number of spaces for people, both now and in the future, and our work on tackling stigma aims to fundamentally break down barriers for those seeking support.

The Scottish Government is also developing a National Service Specification alongside guidance, which provide clarity on the types of treatment and recovery services available for drugs and alcohol and in the long term, improve joint working between public and third sector partners. We plan full public consultation on a draft specification with an aim to publish in 2025.

Within the National Mission strategy we are also adapting to new trends such as the change in global markets with the increased prevalence of new synthetic substances, such as the synthetic opioids nitazenes, which is of real concern.

To ensure that our future strategic plans are evidence-based, they will be informed by the National Mission evaluation, with the final publication expected in 2026. In accordance with democratic processes, any future strategic plans will also take into account the outcomes of the 2026 Scottish election.