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In 2024-25, we allocated over £450,000 to gynaecology from our £30 million targeted investment in planned care, delivering around 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.

The 2025-26 Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for Health & Social Care, including a commitment to provide £200 million to help reduce waiting times and improve capacity, and gynaecology is being targeted as a key priority area for additional funding.

Our Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, and I have been meeting with clinicians to better understand the challenges that currently exist within gynaecology services, to discuss innovative solutions, and to reiterate our commitment that timely access to gynaecology services is a key priority area for the Scottish Government and for the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government commissioned Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has developed a strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG) for Gynaecology, which promotes multidisciplinary team working and supports local adoption of service improvement programmes. This group has supported several new and innovative pathway developments, many of which are now being successfully scaled up across Scotland, including Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) and Patient Initiated Review (PIR).

The health and wellbeing of women at work is a key element of the Scottish Government’s approach to Fair Work, including supporting women experiencing symptoms of menopause.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of women who leave the workforce due to experiencing menopause. However, UK research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development - Menopause in the workplace: Employee experiences - published in 2023, that of the over 1,500 women experiencing symptoms of menopause surveyed, 17% were considering leaving due to a lack of support in relation to their symptoms. Also, research from 2022 by the Fawcett Society on Menopause in the workplace in the UK indicated that one in ten women who worked during the menopause left their jobs due to their symptoms.

We are taking action towards supporting those experiencing symptoms of menopause in the workplace - please refer to recently answered question reference S6W-35367 on 12 March 2025 for further information.

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

The Scottish Government is committed to improving health and reducing health inequalities, and supporting our more vulnerable communities, which can include our former coalfield communities.

We know that poverty and unemployment are key drivers of ill health and health inequalities. That is why, we continue to support the health of Scotland’s population through a number of measures including:

• allocating around £3 billion a year since 2022-23 to tackle poverty;
• initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles through tobacco control, preventing alcohol related harm, promoting healthy eating and physical activity; and
• the creation of a Population Health Framework to take a preventative approach in which we address health problems at the root as well as build a Scotland in which our places and communities can positively support health and wellbeing.

In addition, we deliver significant investment through a range programmes to support economic growth and regenerate communities, which contribute to addressing underlying poverty by creating jobs and employment opportunities. Our regeneration programmes are delivered through established relationships with local government and communities, focussing investment in areas of priority need including former coalfield communities. These programmes include our Investing in Communities Fund, which is being delivered over 2023-24 to 2025-26 with an annual budget of circa £9m. It is currently supporting 20 projects in coalfield communities investing nearly £3.5 million to date.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with stakeholders including Social Work Scotland, COSLA, the Community Justice Voluntary Sector Forum and Community Justice Scotland, to discuss a range of matters arising in the delivery of justice services. With regard to specific interventions, however, community justice is primarily based on a local model, with local areas providing or commissioning services according to local need, and working in collaboration with relevant health services to ensure that any necessary support and treatment is provided.

Justice organisations are also represented on Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) which are funded to work with a range of partners at a strategic, operational and service level. ADPs commission a range of activity which can provide support for those in the justice system, such as referrals to treatment services, harm reduction interventions, alcohol interventions and alcohol use treatment needs screening.

The Scottish Government is currently working on a National Treatment Specification for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Scotland. This document will be informed by numerous sources including the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment, the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems’ (SHAAP) paper on alcohol use disorder in the justice system.

We are also investing an additional £11 million in 2025-26 to support a range of community justice services, including diversion from prosecution, alternatives to remand and community sentencing. This brings our total budget for community justice to £159m, recognising the key role that such services play in our justice system, including in supporting people with alcohol problems or other underlying needs.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with both the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) and Police Scotland to discuss a range of matters arising in the delivery of justice services.

Specialist or problem solving courts, the establishment of which is ultimately a decision for the judiciary and SCTS, can be an effective way of supporting those with particular needs and positive work is underway in this area.

For example, the Glasgow Alcohol Court opened in 2018 and aims to reduce rates of offending by supporting people who offend with their underlying alcohol issues. Once accepted into the Alcohol Court, participants receive intensive support from their justice social worker and a substance use worker. In 2022, 240 people were accepted into the Alcohol Court.

There are other good practice examples of problem solving courts, including the Pan-Lanarkshire Alcohol and Drugs Problem Solving Court, which secured funding via the CORRA foundation and launched in December 2023.

In terms of court disposals, community payback orders offer a range of potential requirements including a specific alcohol treatment requirement.

Police Scotland, working in partnership with stakeholders, is establishing a working group that will promote best practice and work to drive an increase in referrals from police custody into support for mental health and wellbeing, alcohol and drugs and other relevant services. The new pathway for arrest referrals has now been established, which involved a full review of practices, mapping of services and establishing any gaps in service provision across Scotland. Further work is planned to drive further improvements in the arrest referral service.

The pathways in place across the country for people with problem alcohol use are developed and implemented by local services based on local needs assessments. The services necessary are commissioned on the advice of local Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships. The Scottish Government provides funding for those services and asks ADPs to report on progress against their own local strategies.

The Scottish Government has committed to providing guidance to ADPs through the development of a national Service Specification and follow-up national Standards for Alcohol and Drug treatment. This will be informed by the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) paper on alcohol use disorder in the justice system.

Delivering high quality endoscopy is a priority of the NHS Scotland clinical and service teams.

The Scottish Government commissioned the National Endoscopy Programme Team, with the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD), and Scottish Government officials routinely monitor Health Board performance against the eight key diagnostic tests, including upper endoscopy, lower endoscopy, colonoscopy, cystoscopy, which are used for the diagnosis and surveillance of gastrointestinal problems such as ulcerative colitis and intestinal polyps.

The National Endoscopy Programme Team also supports on-site visits to all Boards to identify local issues, offer Boards support to develop Demand, Capacity, Activity and Queue (DCAQ) information/capacity planning, and promote alternatives to traditional endoscopy such as CytoSCOT, where clinically appropriate.

In addition, CfSD’s Gastroenterology Specialty Delivery Group (SDG) is working to develop national pathway recommendations for gastroenterology diseases such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Disease. These pathways will reduce unwarranted variation by standardising service provision and pathways on a best-of-class and once-for-Scotland basis wherever possible.

Performance data relating to the number of waits for one of eight key diagnostic tests is published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) on a quarterly basis. The latest publication provides data up to 31 December 2024 and is available here: Diagnostic waiting times - Waits for key diagnostic tests 25 February 2025 - NHS waiting times - diagnostics - Publications - Public Health Scotland

The Scottish Government is taking action to create jobs and boost employability in our coalfields communities. We are investing over £900 million in Growth Deals for Ayrshire, Glasgow (including North and South Lanarkshire), and Edinburgh and South East Scotland which includes Fife. This funding is creating thousands of new jobs and maintaining existing jobs across these areas. The UK Government is providing match funding.

No One Left Behind is a Scotland-wide strategy delivering employability support to those eligible and furthest from the labour market. It is a collaboration between the Scottish Government and local authorities, and aligns and integrates services in each local area to offer an all-round, holistic approach.

Regeneration programmes such as Regeneration Capital Grant Fund, Investing in Communities Fund and Strengthening Communities Programme are supporting job creation, training, and employability skills. In addition we have provided over £29 million in funding to CRT since 1999 to invest in improving outcomes for former coalfield communities.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living with gastrointestinal conditions and symptoms in Scotland are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

Information and guidance on gastrointestinal conditions and symptoms such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease including crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is already widely available to the public via the NHS Inform website: Scottish health information you can trust | NHS inform and we have no plans to commit to a campaign at this time.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Competition and Markets Authority’s market study on infant formula and follow-on formula. Parents need to be able to make fully informed infant feeding choices. Where a family chooses to formula feed, the cost of essential food for babies should not be out of reach.

Scottish Government will work with UK partners to consider the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations, including how they relate to Scotland.