Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested as this is a matter for local Health and Social Care Partnerships. The information is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26094 on 26 March 2024. 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/questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government has not had discussions with COSLA or local authorities regarding apprenticeship provision for traditional trades. Skills Development Scotland have operational responsibility for apprenticeship provision and regularly engage with local authorities, for both Modern and Foundation Apprenticeship provision.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of encouraging young people to enter the social care workforce, and are working with partners to provide future sustainability to the sector and create additional career choices for those looking to leave education.

This has included a burst of marketing activity which specifically engaged with school leavers in summer 2023, and a careers event held in collaboration with Developing the Young Workforce Forth Valley in October 2023.

The Scottish Government meets with campus unions on a bi-annual basis, and representatives of the college sector in a number of forums regularly, where a range of matters important to the sector are discussed.

We expect college management and unions to work together to do everything they can to reach a pay settlement that is both fair and affordable.

However, while the Scottish Government can have no direct role in these negotiations, we will continue to engage with both management and unions as and when appropriate to do so.

Operational decisions on pay and staffing matters are the responsibility of individual colleges.

The Scottish Government expects every effort to be made, in consultation with trade unions, to protect jobs. The Scottish Government has been clear that compulsory redundancies should only be considered as a last resort, after all other options have been fully explored in collaboration with trade unions.

As set out in the Letter of Guidance issued by the Scottish Government to the Scottish Funding Council on 29 March 2024, implementation of Fair Work First must be the guiding criteria to promote fairer work practices for staff within the college sector.

The Scottish Government expects college employers and trades unions to follow Fair Work principles and work together to reach a conclusion to the pay negotiations with a settlement which is both fair and affordable, without the need for further industrial action.

Operational guidance regarding the provision of food is provided to Boards from Health Facilities Scotland (a division of National Services Scotland). Boards carry out quality assurance activity of their catering services through several mechanisms. Patient Experience Surveys are used in all boards, through a variety of methods, and include questions on national measures of quality (which are reported annually to Health Facilities Scotland), alongside additional questions included by the board. Mealtime observations, where the ward service is observed and measured against several topic areas, are used to help to identify areas for improvement. However, some boards do not currently carry out these types of audits. All feedback should be reviewed by the service and used to measure the quality of the service from the patient’s perspective, helping to identify areas for improvement.

Patient Feedback should be considered at several forums, including at the board’s Strategic Hydration and Nutritional Care Group or Food, Fluid and Nutrition Group meetings.

Where patients have complaints, Boards are encouraged to utilise the NHS Complaints Handling Procedure. Where suitable, Boards are encouraged to resolve straightforward complaints at the earliest opportunity, however where this is not possible complaints can be escalated to an investigation stage.

The information requested is not held centrally and is a matter for each health board. Health boards have a legal obligation under Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011) to identify a person with responsibility over their records. They decide on the best way to designate further roles and responsibilities for that matter.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer meets regularly with both the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health, and Social Care and I on medicine policy matters, including supporting consistency in prescribing across the NHS in Scotland. This includes work on evolving individual Health Board medicine formularies to regional formularies covering prescribing in both hospitals and primary care, based on a collaborative consensus model which builds upon proven existing local governance and decision-making processes. This work has recently been endorsed by Health Board Chief Executives as a priority work programme.