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This year we invested £30m which is driving targeted action to address the longest delays. This will see around 24,000 New Outpatient Appointments and Inpatient/ Day-Case procedures as well as over 40,000 diagnostic procedures. The funding has included diagnostic services in NHS Grampian, NHS Shetland and NHS Orkney.

Healthcare support workers in Scotland, by agreement from their employers, can enrol on the HNC in Healthcare Practice at their local college and can then progress to the nursing degree programme currently provided by the Open University, enabling them to remain in the workforce in their local Board area whilst studying. The Scottish Government provides a salary backfill payment to employers to compensate for time away from the workplace for both the Open University and HNC programmes.

Within our 24/25 Programme for Government we committed to working across the four nations on banning the sale of single use vapes (SUV) as well as the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

SUV’s have been linked to a rapid increase in the number of young people vaping, particularly due to their low price. The SUV ban will be implemented from 1 June 2025 in line with the rest of the UK.

If passed the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, will restrict the promotion, advertisement and brand sharing of vapes.

Our Scotland-wide ‘Take Hold’ marketing campaign educated parents, carers and children about the dangers of vaping and increased the awareness of the harms and risks of nicotine addiction. It also contained a school toolkit.

We continue to work with Young Scot to support young people to understand the risks of using tobacco and nicotine products, and raise awareness of available cessation services and avenues to support young people to stop smoking/vaping.

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure that response times are as quick as possible, regardless of geography.

The Scottish Ambulance Service completed a full review of Demand and Capacity across Scotland at the end of 2019 which involved looking at demand data and resources to predict current and future demand and map out the levels of staff and vehicles required across different parts of Scotland. The outcome of the review saw an increase in resourcing and staffing in both urban and rural areas across Scotland.

Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on public transport to health facilities.

The Scottish Government's Transport to Health delivery plan aims to ensure access to healthcare facilities is fully considered within regional and local planning, including planning for our rural communities.

Our vision is that all disabled people can travel with the same freedom, choice, dignity and opportunity as other citizens. The Accessible Travel Framework launched in 2016, is focused on improving the overall journey experience for disabled people by removing the barriers which prevent them travelling.

The delivery plan for 2024-2026 has been published in early October 2024. This covers delivery for the final two years of the Framework, and includes Transport to Health as a workstream.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. You should contact the Scottish Ambulance Service directly.

The Scottish Government’s role is to set the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, NHS Boards are responsible for service delivery. All Health Boards should consider patient transport needs when they plan and deliver services.

On 30 October, the Scottish Government published the Transport to Health delivery plan which sets out commitments against transport and healthcare across the work of Health and Social Care and Transport Scotland. The plan was informed by the 2019 Transport to health and social care report prepared by the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) on behalf of Ministers.

As set out in the plan, we will continue to use the NHS annual delivery plans to re-emphasise the need for Health Boards to consider patient access as part of the care pathway and reflecting the opportunity that is emerging for reducing the number of patient journeys through alternative options.

All referrals to the hospital eye service from community optometry are electronic and enable the attachment of retinal images and other examination results to aid the triaging of the patients. In addition, since the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government has facilitated the use of technology to support remote consultations under General Ophthalmic Services which is likely to be of particular benefit to patients living in rural areas. The cloud-based national Electronic Patient Record is also being used by community optometrists providing the Community Glaucoma Service - an important technological initiative supporting safe and high quality care.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33681 on 27 January 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

There are therefore no financial barriers to receiving optometry services.

NHS Board’s baseline revenue allocations are set out annually in the Scottish Budget, as published on the Scottish Government’s website. In addition, resource and capital spending limits are reported in Board’s annual accounts, which are published on their websites.

The Scottish Government allocates funding to territorial NHS Boards based on the NRAC formula. The NRAC formula takes into account factors in addition to population levels, including excess costs of delivering healthcare in remote and rural areas.

Since 2006-07, baseline funding for health and social care has increased by 120% in cash terms and 37% in real terms.

Since 2012-13, over £3.5 billion of additional funding has been committed to those NHS Boards below their NRAC parity levels, ensuring all Boards remain within 0.6% of parity.

More information on the NRAC formula is available at: Resource Allocation Formula in Scotland - Finance - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)