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NHS Ayrshire & Arran engaged with the Scottish Government in late February about their interim arrangements for transferring the three Intensive Care Unit beds from University Hospital Ayr to University Hospital Crosshouse.

The Board has also engaged with the Scottish Government in recent years about their proposals to retain interim changes (made during the pandemic) to the model for delivery of local systemic anti-cancer therapies (including chemotherapy). The Board launched a formal consultation on the proposals which ran from 13 February to 19 May 2023 and the details can be accessed at: https://jointheconversation-nhsaaa.co.uk/sact-public-consultation-2 .

It is for Healthcare Improvement Scotland's Community Engagement Team (HIS-CE) (formerly the Scottish Health Council) to answer questions on what proposed service changes NHS Boards have consulted them about.

The Scottish Government would expect that all health boards, including NHS Ayrshire & Arran, follow the national Planning with People guidance, which includes the need to engage with HIS-CET when considering service change.

The guidance is available at the following: https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-people-community-engagement-participation-guidance/

The Scottish Government has no plans to establish a Young Cancer Patient Travel Fund.

Financial support for travel to hospital is available for patients and authorised escorts, in line with eligibility criteria and medical requirements under the Patient Travel Expenses Scheme and Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme. Boards also have discretion to reimburse patient travel expenses where it is viewed to be an extension of treatment costs and deemed to be clinically necessary.

Furthermore, the Young Patients Family Fund helps families of young inpatients under 18 to cover some of the costs of hospital visits. This fund is available for all patients including those diagnosed with cancer.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

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

Clinical nurse specialists (CNS) make a valued contribution to delivering services and supporting patients and families who require specialist care. The Scottish Government has invested over £2.4 million annually in the Specialist Nursing and Care Fund since 2015, which continues to increase access to CNS nationally.

The Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland; however, the statutory responsibility for delivering or commissioning services at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for lymphocytic leukaemia specialist nurses, are therefore matters for those bodies.

However, within cancer services we have piloted 12 Single Point of Contact (SPoC) programmes. This approach will ensure patients with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of cancer have dedicated person-centred support to discuss their specific circumstances.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for the period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

For the latest data I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17130 on
‎ 17 May 2023. 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

To support the ongoing delivery of Multi-Disciplinary Teams in 2022-23, including pharmacists, mental health workers and physiotherapists, we made available £170 million through the Primary Care Improvement Fund for Health and Social Care Partnerships. This was allocated in accordance with local need, with due consideration to implementation plans and Agenda for Change uplifts.

The Scottish Government has seen a substantive reduction in new outpatient, as well as inpatient and day case waits over two years since the targets were announced last year.

As of 31 March 2023, for outpatient appointments, 33 out of 41 specialties (80%) have fewer than 10 waits over 2 years, while 20 specialties have none. We also continue to see a reduction in waits over 18 months for new outpatients, which have reduced by 48.5% at 31 March 2023 compared to June 2022 (from 8,804 to 4,534). 41% of specialties also now have fewer than 10 patients waiting over 52 weeks. The number of patients waiting longer than 2 years for inpatient or day case treatment was reduced by 27% since targets were announced (from 9,572 to 6,985). 18 of 30 specialties have fewer than 10 patients waiting more than two years, and 13 specialties having no-one waiting more than 2 years.

The National Optimal Lung Cancer Diagnostic Pathway provides boards with best practice examples to improve lung cancer diagnostic pathway efficiency. Adoption of the optimal diagnostic pathway will take time as boards begin to redesign their services, funding has been aligned to this work to help support boards implement diagnostic pathway improvements over time. Not all patients that move through diagnostic pathways will have cancer, however data form Public Health Scotland shows that we continue to treat around 1,000 lung cancer patients in NHS Scotland on average each quarter. Data on the number of lung cancers treated in Jan - March 2023 will be published by PHS on 27 June 2023.

The Scottish Breast Screening programme was temporarily paused between March 2020 – August 2020 in order to reduce the risk of participants becoming infected with Covid-19, to enable physical distancing, and to minimise the impact on essential NHS services as they responded to the virus. When screening resumed, a continued pause on self-referrals allowed appointments to be prioritised for those aged 50-70 years old, the recommended screening population. A phased restart of self-referrals was agreed on October 2022. Following this, women aged 71-74, and those over 75 with a history of breast cancer, have been eligible to self-refer for a screening appointment since November 2020.

Table 1 below shows the number of women who self-referred in each of the last three reporting years that run from 1 April to 31 March.

Table 1 shows the number of self-referrals from April 2020 - March 2023