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Since its introduction in July 2020, over 3 million NHS Pharmacy First Scotland consultations have taken in place across Scotland.

In the annual Dispenser Payments and Prescription Cost Analysis publication, Public Health Scotland reported that in financial year 2021-22 alone, a total of 2,954,181 Pharmacy First consultations were undertaken with 95% providing advice on self-care or treatment at the point of contact, therefore removing the need for unnecessary visits to GP practices, Out of Hour services or Emergency Department for everyday self-limiting conditions.

Consultations using PGDs in 2021/22 accounted for 4% (119,728) with 84% (100,182) being treated by the community pharmacy instead of requiring a GP/Out of Hours appointment.

Public Health Scotland has also reported that in 2021/22, 23% of the Scottish population (1,242,801 people) accessed Pharmacy First services at least once.

Civil servants operate flexibly across a range of pharmacy policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of the work at any time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time that they spend working on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to say specifically how many hours were spent by civil servants involved in this work.

Civil servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of the work at any time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time that they spend working on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to say specifically how many hours were spent by civil servants involved in this work.

Current funding of £30.8 million is allocated for NHS Pharmacy First Scotland. This includes £10 million of new funding which was invested between 2020-21 and 2022-23.

This funding provides a monthly base payment to every pharmacy for provision of the service as well as activity payments for specific interventions. These pharmaceutical care interventions are Advice, Referral or Treatment.

The Scottish AI Playbook is a “one stop shop” for anyone in Scotland embarking on a journey involving AI whether it’s learning, using, developing, deploying or just exploring. It is a shared and living asset, embodying Scotland’s AI Strategy ethos of openness, transparency and collaboration. With this in mind, the Scottish Government has focused on the development of meaningful partnerships within the Playbook to support and demonstrate wider impact.

To date, the Playbook has established partnerships with CyberScotland, Fintech Scotland, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Jisc National Centre for AI in Tertiary Education and Scotland’s Futures Forum. A further five partnerships are currently in the development phase.

Further collaborative opportunities are in development, namely through the creation of Playbook hubs. The first of these hubs currently in development is focused on Data and AI in the Healthcare space. As part of the development of this hub, a quantitative approach to measuring impact will be initiated, through namely through Google Analytics integration into the Scottish AI Playbook MediaWiki platform.

The Scottish Government also understands that impact can be both felt and measured qualitatively, in the feedback and experiences of Playbook users. With this in mind, the next phase of Playbook development also includes a period of user consultation and feedback in order to measure experiential impact. This will be subject to resourcing and budgetary considerations, as it is recognised that measuring impact in this way, while highly valuable and beneficial, is resource intensive.

While the impact of the Scottish AI Playbook either is or will be measured in several different ways, it is noted that an overarching approach to impact and impact measurement is currently in development by the Scottish AI Alliance. Once this impact measurement approach and associated framework is in hand, it is likely to have an effect on the way in which the impact of the Scottish AI Playbook is measured.

During the creation of the Scottish AI Strategy, the Scottish Government worked closely with colleagues across the SG and further afield, to ensure that we move forward in a joined up manner. We have continued to offer input to the development of related strategies both internally and nationally.

For example, as part of the development of the Digital strategy we specifically focused on the ethical considerations key to delivery of an ethical digital nation, and we worked more widely to consider how the emerging use of AI could help us deliver more focused and effective public services and economic benefit as part of the Scottish National Strategy for Economic Transformation. We have also both contributed to and taken direction from the Scottish Innovation Strategy. We have considered the types of support required by innovative and new businesses, whilst also supporting training and upskilling opportunities for those working in the technology sector.

In terms of UK wide developments we have engaged closely with UK Government colleagues around the creation of their draft white paper and we will continue to input to this discussion as the regulation of AI technologies continue.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has confirmed that they are not aware of any reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete within the SPS estate.

Following a recent review of its estate, Police Scotland identified reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in three of its buildings.

Police Scotland took immediate action to ensure that there was no risk to officers, staff or the public, and continues to work with structural engineers to identify longer term solutions for these buildings.

We are investing £1.45bn in policing in 2023-24. No additional funding has specifically been provided to Police Scotland for this issue.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who reply in writing within 20 days.

The action was carried out and completed as part of the first 100 Days of the AI Strategy.

As reported in the 2021-22 State of AI Report we shared the following –

Capability Directory

The Scottish AI Alliance connected with ScotlandIS regarding their existing Data Capabilities Directory back during the First 100 Days. The Directory was recently refreshed. Another update took place in Autumn and the Support Circle team worked with the ScotlandIS team to ensure that AI capabilities are incorporated sufficiently into the directory. The Directory was also actively promoted by the Scottish AI Alliance to the AI community across Scotland and has been added to the Scotland’s AI Strategy website as a resource. Investigations of future format of the directory have started and there is potential for it to be incorporated in a larger piece of work in collaboration with the Scottish Tech Ecosystem Review (STER) and Digital Strategy teams at Scottish Government.

We will continue to monitor and contribute to this work as required.

Scottish Enterprise are in the process of commissioning a landscape review of AI businesses in Scotland. The database gathered by the review will be incorporated into the Scottish AI Playbook in due course. The review is currently being finalised and will be released in the coming weeks.