Seòmar agus comataidhean

We held a public consultation for the new cancer strategy from 12th April – 7th June. Anyone who wished to submit a response was welcome to through Citizens Space, this includes members of the public, professionals working with cancer services, and organisations. The results of the consultation will be published shortly and will feed into the development of the next cancer strategy.

Early insights from the initial consultation report show that organisations in the cancer sector welcome a long-term strategy with broad overarching aims to help achieve structural changes in the delivery of cancer care.

PHS collate data on Direct Cancer Referrals. This includes self, GP or NHS24 referral to A&E or other, where the signs and symptoms are consistent with the cancer diagnosed as per the Scottish Referral Guidelines. Data on these patients are only available from PHS from 2010 onwards as outlined in the following table.

Table 1: Number of direct cancer referrals 1,2,3 on the 31 day pathway since data-set began

The National Cancer Medicines Advisory Group (NCMAG) provides advice on the off-label uses of certain cancer medicines, which are out with the remit of the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCMAG provided rapid national decisions regarding the use of cancer medicines (sometimes out with the licensed indication for the medicine) to help meet the overall aim of reducing patient risk of COVID-19 infection and to mitigate the potential burden on cancer services.

Cancer services remain under considerable pressure, and cancer patients continue to be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. As a result, it was agreed that existing COVID-19 NCMAG advice would remain in place until the end of March 2023, after which it will be withdrawn. More generally, extant Scottish Government guidance states that unless there is a specific clinical reason, clinicians should not continue to use an unlicensed medicine or a medicine off-label where there is an available licensed medicine, which has been accepted for routine use by the SMC.

Provisions within Part 1 of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, introduce a temporary cap on in-tenancy rent increases. The cap is set at 0% until at least 31 March 2023.

This means that a landlord is able to set the rent for any new tenancy and is allowed to put the rent up between one tenant moving out and the next tenant moving in.

Where a tenant remains the same person, but is required, in line with statutory processes, to be issued with a new tenancy agreement, the rent cap provisions within the Act do not apply.

The National Referral Mechanism is the UK-wide framework for identifying victims of human trafficking and exploitation and ensuring they receive appropriate support. The NRM is operated by the Single Competent Authority and Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority within the Home Office.

NRM data can be accessed via the Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism statisticswhich contains records back to 2013.

In addition to this, police recorded crime statistics include several types of crime in relation to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 as detailed below

• Slavery or forced labour (under sections 1 and 4 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015)
• Human organ crimes (under section 1 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015)
• Breach of Trafficking & Exploitation Order crime (under section 32 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 and
• Immoral traffic (under section 1 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995)

This act came into effect on 31 May 2016, with the first recorded crimes falling in the 2016-17 recording year (see Table One).

Prior to the implementation of the 2015 act, data is only available on Immoral traffic crimes recorded in Scotland (under section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995). These are shown in table 2.

Table 1 – Recorded crimes under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2021-22

Notes:

1. As the act came into effect on 31 May 2016 this is not a full recording year.

2. Although this crime pre-dates the act, some charges under the act were assigned to this crime beginning with the 2016-17 recording year.

Table 2 – Recorded crimes of Immoral traffic, Scotland, 1999-00 to 2015-16

Source: Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2021-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

This data is not held centrally by The Scottish Government, National Records of Scotland or Public Health Scotland. 

In September 2022 the Scottish Government and COSLA published Scotland’s 10 year suicide prevention strategy and action plan, ‘Creating Hope Together’. This sets out a comprehensive plan to reduce suicide deaths in Scotland.

The initial 3 year action plan will support continuous improvement in the quality of clinical care and support provided by mental health services for people who are suicidal. This includes embedding the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) guidelines into operating practices. NCISH is the UK’s leading research programme into suicide prevention in clinical services, and is supported by the Scottish Government. Data tables from their 2022 Annual Report are available to view here which provides information on location of suicides, but is not broken down specifically to mental health settings.

The new strategy includes a continued focus on rolling out multi-agency suicide reviews across Scotland, which will provide valuable learning about where service opportunities have been missed in preventing a suicide. The suicide reviews will include information on whether the person who died was a mental health services inpatient. It is expected the system will identify the location of death, including whether the person was an inpatient at the time of death. Along with other types of data and insight, the learning from suicide reviews will produce valuable intelligence to inform ongoing service improvements.

Provisions within Part 1 of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, introduce a temporary cap on in-tenancy rent increases, which is set at 0% until at least 31 March 2023.

The following tenancies are not covered by the rent cap:

• some assured tenancies where rent increases are controlled by the contract - if a tenant has an assured tenancy where the way their rent will increase is set out in their contract - and the emergency legislation is still legally in force - then rent will be able to increase in the way agreed in the contract;
• regulated tenancies under the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 - these tenancies already have strong protections in place, and rents for these tenancies can only increase once every three years;
• common law tenancies - this includes arrangements like agricultural tenancies and lodger agreements (where a tenant lives with a landlord in their home), with the exception of student tenancy agreements; and new tenancies.

The Scottish Government does not make assessments of those who are homeless.

The Scottish Government collects information from local authorities that is recorded as part of the of the homelessness application process. This data includes ethnicity and some limited information on nationality of the main applicant and partner (where applicable), which is self-reported by the homelessness applicant.

Information on the detailed categories of ethnicity/nationality that are collected are set out in section 10 of the homelessness data specification . These are grouped together for publication purposes (due to low numbers) as below:

White: Scottish,

White: Other British,

White: Irish,

White: Other,

White: Polish,

African,

Caribbean or Black,

Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British,

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups,

Other ethnic group,

Not known or Refused.

The most recently published data can be found in the equalities tables on the supporting documents page of our annual homelessness statistics with time series starting in 2002-2003. Data is presented for the main applicant.

In September 2022, the Scottish Government, in agreement with Local Authorities, has added the following ethnicity/nationality categories to the homelessness data collection:

Ukrainian

White: Roma

White: Showman/Showwoman

This data will be included in future publications.

The Scottish Government does not hold or collect information about the availability of homeless shelter beds.

The Scottish Government established rapid rehousing welcome centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 2020 as part of our commitment with partners to end the use of night shelter and dormitory-style provision. The centres provide short-term and self-contained accommodation and assist people at risk of rough sleeping to move on to more settled accommodation. The Scottish Government has provided funding towards their operation during the last two winters.

The Scottish Government had not had any recent discussions about the definition of homelessness. A person is homeless under section 24 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 if (s)he has no accommodation in the UK or elsewhere which (s)he is entitled or permitted to occupy.