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We know that inflation is having the biggest impact on those with the lowest incomes. We are doing what we can within our devolved powers and this year we have allocated almost £3 billion to support people who are struggling.

Our Best Start Foods provides pregnant women and families with children under the age of three who receive certain benefits, with a minimum of £4.50 a week to purchase healthy foods. Eligible foods include fruit and vegetables as well as milk, first infant formula milk, eggs and pulses. Between launching Best Start Foods on 12 August 2019 and 28 February 2022, more than 111,000 applications were authorised providing support of over £27.3 million to those families who need it most. In 2022-23 we expect 40,000 people will receive £12 million of support through Best Start Foods. In 2023-24 we will remove the income thresholds for all qualifying benefits which will mean an additional 20,000 people will be able to access Best Start Foods. At the same time, we will move to a cash payment instead of pre-payment cards – giving parents greater flexibility and choice in how they use this financial support.

We have maintained funding levels for community food networks so that they can continue to support people struggling to access healthier food options. These networks provide a broad range of activities including: cooking classes, benefit checks, grow your own groups, cafés and food pantries.

The Scottish Government is also providing local authorities with funding to make free school lunches available to all children in primaries 1 to 5, and in special schools, during school term-time. Our new regulations governing the nutritional standards for food and drink in schools came into effect in April 2021. This guarantees all children and young people have access to their five portions of fruit and vegetables per day on every day when they attend at school.

Any decision on whether or not to introduce a new national screening programme in Scotland is guided by the recommendations of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group which advises all four nations of the United Kingdom on screening policy. In 2017, the UK NSC recommended against the introduction of a Group B Streptococcus (GBS) screening programme. If a recommendation is made by the UK NSC to introduce GBS screening then the Scottish Screening Committee, in consultation with medical experts in this field, will advise Scottish Ministers on the most appropriate course of action for Scotland.

The GBS3 clinical trial , run by the Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit, is looking to gather evidence on whether a universal screening programme would be both clinically and cost effective. The UK NSC will review the evidence for screening once findings from the GBS3 clinical trial are published and the Scottish Screening Committee will give careful consideration to any recommendation the NSC makes. All NHS Boards have been made aware of the opportunity to participate in the GBS3 trial.

We expect NHS Boards to follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidance in the diagnosis, management and treatment of Group B Streptococcus infection in pregnant women and their babies. NICE guideline NG195, Neonatal infection: antibiotics for prevention and treatment , published on 20 April 2021 and developed in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), is the most recent clinical guidance available.

All pregnant women in Scotland are provided with a copy of Ready, Steady, Baby! ( RSB!), a guide to pregnancy, labour and birth and early parenthood up to 8 weeks. RSB! is also available via the NHS Inform website and includes information on GBS . The RCOG Group B Streptococcus in pregnancy and newborn babies leaflet is also provided to women.

Through the Women’s Health Plan, we want all women to have timely access to menopause support and services. For those who need specialist support beyond primary care, there is now a specialist menopause service in every mainland NHS Board.

For women living in the areas of Island health boards there is a “buddy” system in place. This system allows Island GPs and health practitioners to seek advice from one of the mainland menopause specialist services to support their more complex patients. Alternatively, they can refer patients to one of the mainland services, if they meet the referral criteria. Consultations take the form of a discussion, usually by phone or video, meaning patients do not routinely need to travel to the mainland.

The National Menopause Specialists Network complements this service and meets regularly to provide consistent advice and peer support to health care professionals across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the mental health of women and girls with autism and to this end we work with and support autism charities, including the Autistic Persons Organisation Scottish Women’s Autism Network (SWAN). Our Toward Transformation plan published March 2021 and Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan published in October 2020 both reflect this.

Lived experience sits at the heart of our new leadership and engagement work and is threaded through all of our processes. This empowers autistic people and people with learning disabilities to be leaders in transforming policy in Scotland by bringing them together with people who are responsible for providing services nationally and locally.

Workshops have taken place to discuss the Mental Health experiences and needs of autistic people, including autistic women’s experiences of mental health. These views will be fed into national workshops in the coming months, where solutions will be discussed to improve the lives of autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09419 on 13 July 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 .

There are no plans to review home educated pupils' entitlement to free school meals at present. Free school meals are not normally provided for children and young people whose parents have chosen to home educate them, as the local authority is not responsible for providing their education. Free school meals would only be provided to children and young people who are not receiving their education at a local authority run school if they had entered into an agreement to do so through their local authority. The Scottish Government is not normally made aware of these arrangements.

Local authorities have the flexibility to make discretionary offers of free school meals to families experiencing financial hardship due to exceptional circumstances if they do not meet the regular eligibility criteria. We would urge any families who are home educating their children and experiencing financial hardship to contact their local authority to enquire about what alternative forms of assistance might be available to them.

Families can also access Money Talk Team, a free service provided by Citizen’s Advice on behalf of the Scottish Government that helps to ensure that families are receiving all available benefits and are not paying more than is required for services. More information about this service can be found online at https://moneytalkteam.org.uk/ or by calling their free phone helpline on 0800 085 7145.

The increasing options for flexible working available through less than full-time training (LTFT), has had a positive impact on the demographics of the medical profession.

Women’s participation in medicine is currently at a good level. There are proportionately more women than men graduating from Scottish medical schools. The requirement for Scottish trainee doctors (junior doctors) to provide gender details is not mandatory, but of the 4,744 of 6,167 current trainees in medical programmes who have disclosed this information, 2,787 are women against a figure of 1,957 for men. Across the UK, women make up just under 48% of all doctors. However, the number of licenced women doctors has been increasing at a higher rate than doctors who are men, year-on-year.

There are currently 53 trainees in cardiology programmes, of the 37 who have provided information on gender, 11 are women, against a figure of 26 for men. Historically, cardiology has been dominated by doctors who are men, an issue that is not specific to Scotland. In recognition of the gender disparity, the Cardiology Specialty Training Board is taking steps to address the issue. This includes a review of their membership and that of the Speciality Training Committee memberships across the regions, in terms of both gender and ethnicity.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09419 on 13 July 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 .

Information on the number of epilepsy clinical specialist nurses currently employed by NHS Scotland is not centrally held.

Information on the how many patients are currently assigned an epilepsy specialist nurse is not centrally held.