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There is no backlog or waiting times in the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme.

Bowel screening involves taking a simple test at home. Eligible men and women, who are registered with a Community Health Index (CHI) number, are sent a letter and test kit in the post, which is completed at home and returned to the central Scottish Bowel Screening Centre in Dundee.

Once a patient is issued a test kit they will typically be invited to participate in screening again during the same month every 2 years until they are 74.

The Scottish Government is supportive of multi-operator ticketing arrangements being available across all areas of Scotland. As such, we work with local transport authorities who are responsible for ensuring their public transport services meet passenger needs.

Through the Transport Bill, further powers will be given to local government to support development of multi-operator ticketing where demand is not being met.

Multi-operator ticketing schemes such as the Zonecard in Strathclyde and the One Ticket covering South East Scotland, already cover both urban and rural bus and rail travel (with Subway and ferry services also available using the Zonecard).

In other areas of Scotland, similar bus only products are available in both urban and rural areas. These include the successful smartzones; GrassHOPPER in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire; and ABC in Dundee, currently being developed to expand across the Tay cities region.

The Scottish Bowel Screening Programme invites all men and women in Scotland between the ages of 50 to 74 for bowel screening every two years. This is in line with recommendations from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) an independent expert advisory group which advises the four UK countries about all aspects of screening policy.

Bowel screening involves taking a simple test at home. Eligible men and women, who are registered with a Community Health Index (CHI) number, are sent a letter and test kit in the post, which is completed at home and returned to the central Scottish Bowel Screening Centre in Dundee.

Once a patient is issued a test kit they will typically be invited to participate in screening again during the same month every 2 years until they are 74.

The new simpler bowel screening test ‘FIT’ was introduced in November 2017 and is helping to increase participation in the programme. The increase in uptake of bowel screening and in the proportion of returned bowel screening kits testing positive has placed some additional pressures on colonoscopy departments.

Earlier this year the Scottish Government launched an Endoscopy Action Plan, backed with £14 million of funding. This, along with our £850m Waiting Times Action Plan, will reduce the amount of time people will have to wait for these key diagnostic tests.

Validated data for Diagnostic Waiting Times Standards are published by NHS ISD quarterly and can be accessed through the ISD website: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2018-11-27/2018-11-27-WT-Diagnostic-Report.pdf .

We recognise that living in an underheated home can have potential negative impacts on health, particularly for the elderly and people with pre-existing underlying conditions. That is a key reason why the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill sets such an ambitious target to bring down fuel poverty.

Alongside the Bill and the draft strategy we published a Health Impact Assessment . This provides details and evidence on the effects on health and wellbeing of living in an underheated home and of energy efficiency interventions, current partnership engagement with NHS Scotland and how we propose to build on this to help reduce health inequalities for those living in fuel poverty.

The National Records of Scotland caution that winter mortality can fluctuate significantly from one year to the next, and there can be a number of underlying factors behind this. Nonetheless, we recognise that living in an underheated home can have potential negative impacts on health, particularly for the elderly and people with pre-existing underlying conditions. That is why we are setting ambitious targets for the reduction of fuel poverty in the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill, and why addressing health inequalities is among the central aims of the accompanying draft strategy. We are also already taking actions to address the health impacts of fuel poverty. These include:

• continuing to work with NHS Health Scotland and other national partners within the advice and fuel poverty sectors to develop partnerships to improve collaborative working.
• funding Home Energy Scotland (HES) to provide free and impartial energy advice to all callers via a Freephone number and offer face to face support where this is the best option for the householder.
• continuing to deliver our HES Homecare pilot which is working closely with NHS colleagues to provide support to vulnerable households.

The Scottish Government recognises that mentoring can be valuable in supporting women into leadership positions. The First Minister mentors a young woman and has encouraged other women in leadership positions, across all sectors including retail, to consider mentoring as one tool to support the next generation of women leaders.

In addition, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce Network along with Women's Enterprise Scotland and Scotland's leading women entrepreneurs are working together to provide the "Women's Business Mentoring" programme to help support and create more female business owners, including those in retail.

We are currently working in partnership with the Scottish Retail Consortium to develop a national retail strategy and, as part of that process, will be considering action on a wide range of issues including any measures that will encourage employment and greater gender diversity throughout the industry.

Information on the numbers of people with cystic fibrosis who have died since Orkambi became licensed on 16 November 2015 is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to gender equality and to ensuring that women have equal opportunities and access to power and resources as men. Evidence shows that having more women at senior levels and in the boardroom is good for business and contributes to better decision making.

In June 2015, the Scottish Government launched the Partnership for Change 50/50 by 2020 campaign encouraging organisations from across Scotland’s public, voluntary and private sectors to sign up to a voluntary commitment to work towards gender balance on their boards by 2020. It is heartening that organisations, such as The Scottish Grocers' Federation, have signed up to this initiative.

Improving women’s representation at senior levels must also reflect the barriers that women experience in the labour market, including due to their disproportionate responsibility for providing childcare and other forms of care. The Scottish Government is taking a broad range of action including a commitment to: expand childcare provision; promote flexible working and a Scottish living wage, and address pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

We are currently working in partnership with the Scottish Retail Consortium to develop a national retail strategy and, as part of that process, will be considering a wide range of issues including any measures that might be taken to promote a better gender balance in senior levels of retail.