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Scottish Water’s Board is responsible for setting charge levels with approval from the Water Industry Commission for Scotland. Scottish Water takes both maintaining critical services, and affordability, into account when setting charges.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting people facing issues paying their water bills. The maximum discount for the water charges reduction scheme (available to households which are in receipt of council tax reduction) has increased to 35% - up from 25% and I refer the member to the answer to S6W-06329 on 10 March 2022 for further information on measures to assist domestic customers.

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 fund a core module in the long running Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which includes questions on public attitudes to the health service. Fieldwork for the most recent survey was carried out from 21 October 2021 to end March 2022 and the final report will be published in late 2022. Due to COVID restrictions, the survey was not run in 2020. The last published findings are from 2019 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-2019-attitudes-government-political-engagement/ )

Changes in methodology necessitated by the COVID restrictions unfortunately mean that the 2021 data may not be directly comparable with previous years. The exact timing, methodology and content of the next iteration is currently being discussed.

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) which runs annually asks participants how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with local health services, which contribute to understanding public attitudes to the NHS and social care specifically. Results from the most recent SHS were published in January 2022. As with the SSAS, due to the change to a telephone survey for 2021, the latest data may not be comparable with previous years:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-household-survey-2020-telephone-survey-key-findings/

SHS data collection is ongoing, with 2022 data currently being collected. 2021 data is being processed and is due to be published later in the year.

Pay is an ongoing issue for Agenda for Change trade unions and the position for 2022-23 has been discussed regularly in the meetings I have had with health trade unions, as well as at the Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee, and in meetings involving Scottish Government officials.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07711 on 19 April 2022. 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 recognises and pays tribute to the role the Royal College of Nursing members have undertaken within health and care services during the pandemic. The Government is giving due consideration to the recommendations highlighted in the report.

The report, and its recommendations, cover a range of areas including where work is underway in the context of remobilisation.

The importance of a sustainable, skilled workforce has already been emphasised by commitments in both our Programme for Government and National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland, published on 11 March, 2022. This includes our commitment to increasing the NHS workforce even further, with 1,800 additional full time posts on top of projected workforce growth requirements.

The number of nursing and midwifery staff by location of service delivery is published by NHS Education for Scotland at: https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/data-and-reports/official-workforce-statistics/all-official-statistics-publications/01-march-2022-workforce/dashboards/nhsscotland-workforce/?pageid=6429

The following table shows the number of nursing and midwifery staff by location of service delivery as at 31 December 2021.

The information requested on how many intensive care unit (ICU) nurses were employed in Scotland on 1 April (a) 2020 and (b) 2022 is not centrally available.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07634 on 21 April 2022. 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07634 on 21 April 2022. 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 hugely grateful for what NHS Scotland staff have done and continue to do in caring for patients and coping with the pandemic. As we have done in previous years, we will look to negotiate a settlement for Agenda for Change staff which is fair, affordable and sustainable. It would not be appropriate to say any more at this time but the final settlement will be backdated to at least 1 April 2022.