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I am aware that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have required, on occasion, to temporarily close Out of Hours centres often for a short period of time. This is due to the difficulty in finding GPs willing to fill certain shifts in the out of hours period. The decision to close any Out of Hours centre is taken on the grounds of patient and staff safety.

Patients should access Out of Hours services by first contacting NHS 24 where, if assessed as being required to attend an Out of Hours service, they will be directed to the closest most appropriate centre. NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde also provide a home visiting service in the Out of Hours period for those patients who cannot attend a centre.

I am aware that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are in the process of reviewing their Out of Hours service and are looking at a range of options to make the service more resilient including the use of Advanced Nurse Practitioners and salaried GP posts for the service.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-20959 on 23 January 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Influenza vaccine uptake is monitored by Health Protection Scotland (HPS) based on aggregate level data for all population groups eligible for free influenza vaccine in Scotland.

Information on vaccine uptake estimates during each season is routinely published in HPS weekly Respiratory Reports. Information on cumulative provisional vaccine uptake estimates for the eligible groups for this season as at week 7 (week ending 17 February 2019) is available at: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/resp/resourcedetail.aspx?id=3671 .

Breakdown of the 2018-19 vaccine uptake estimates by board and eligible group is not available until later this year once the immunisation programme has been completed and evaluation of the data is undertaken.

Detailed information on vaccine uptake from 2010-11 to 2017-18 by board and eligible group are published on the HPS website and available at: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/resp/seasonalinfluenzavisualisation.aspx .

We are committed to improving the prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and aftercare for all people living in Scotland who are affected by any form of cancer. This is reflected in our £100 million, 5 year national cancer strategy, ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’.

We are particularly committed to early detection, through our £42 million Detect Cancer Early Programme and national bowel screening programme. Such screening can identify pre-cancerous signs in men and women over 50, and treatment at such an early stage is usually incredibly effective.

A clinical refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines has been completed, based on the latest evidence and published on 22 January 2019. The revised guidelines will support primary care clinicians, including GPs, refer patients, regardless of age, that have a suspicion of cancer, allowing for earlier diagnosis and treatment and increasing their survival chances. Eight pathways were updated as part of the clinical refresh, including Lower GI which colorectal cancer falls under.

The work to develop the Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland is currently being taken forward with a wide range of stakeholders and the expectation, at this stage, is that it will be published in late 2019.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-21337 on 26 February 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Work is underway to develop a comprehensive plan to help address some of the recruitment and retention challenges faced by our health and care sector. We have already published workforce plans covering the NHS, Primary Care and Social Care.

We intend to publish our integrated health and social care workforce plan this year, as the Health Secretary made clear when she updated parliament in November. We are also currently taking our safe staffing legislation through the Scottish Parliament – the first multidisciplinary workforce and workload planning legislation in the UK.

Workforce supply pressures are compounded by the impact of Brexit, and we will undertake additional international recruitment activity in this financial year to promote the resilience of NHS Scotland as a result of EU Withdrawal.

We welcome this report from Parkinson’s UK and will consider it closely as we continue to work with the neurological community to develop Scotland’s first National Action Plan on Neurological Conditions. The public consultation on our draft plan closed on 8 February 2019. We will carefully consider all feedback received and publish our final plan later this year. We work closely with Parkinson’s UK who keep us updated about services and support for people with Parkinson’s in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is supportive of the innovative approach being developed by NHS Grampian to set up an international health office to provide support and guidance for staff who choose to get involved in global citizenship. These plans are aligned to the aims of the NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme, which is a key part of the delivery of the Scottish Government’s International Development Strategy.

The requested information is not held centrally as ISD do not collect vacancy data on support staff, including hospital porters.

Further notes:

• Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/ .