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NHS Scotland advertised vacancies through focussed campaigns in ten countries during the first quarter of 2018. Subsequently candidates have been through selection, shortlisting and assessment phases.

Advertising spend on the campaign was £28,400, this was met by the participating health boards. The campaign attracted some 60 applications, of which health board selection and assessment panels determined that there were 8 potentially appointable candidates, health boards have confirmed that they have made five appointments.

As set out in an update to Parliament on 26 February, officials are in the concluding stage of appointing two co-chairs of this review. It will be for these independent co-chairs to determine the remit, timeframes and approach of the review and, once established, this information will be shared with Parliament.

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.

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 .

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 .

There are a number of specialist cardiac services and provisions for children with heart conditions in Scotland. The National Paediatric Cardiac Service (PCS), based at Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Children, incorporates cardiac surgery, interventional cardiology and neonatal cardiac services; providing an expert package of care for children with cardiac conditions, up to age 16. This service operates closely with the Scottish Adult Congenital Cardiac Service, providing transitional support between paediatric and adult congenital heart disease services. There are also Paediatricians with an interest or expertise in cardiology in most local NHS Boards.

The PCS is commissioned by the National Services Division, funding in the previous three years is £7,438,162 (2015/16), £7,740,834 (2016/17), £7,827,748 (2017-18).Funding for local services is through individual Boards. Scottish Government does not hold information on numbers of medical staff employed by NHS Boards.

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.

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/ .

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 Access Collaborative has developed a comprehensive programme of work over the last year to support a sustainable balance between demand and capacity in the health and care service in Scotland. It has endorsed a number of challenges which are being taken through an agreed development, testing and mandate process, and is actively working to identify new high impact challenges for future inclusion in the programme. Current workstreams include:

• Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT)
• Enhanced Recovery Pre-operative anaemia programme
• Waiting List Validation
• Team Job Planning
• Accelerating the Development of Enhanced Practitioners (ADEPt)
• Virtual Attendance scoping and piloting
• Clinical Pathways Infrastructure Scoping

It has also supported a series of Specialty Group workshops through the year, which are co-producing a series of recommendation reports. These are completed for Cardiology, Urology, Gynaecology, Gastroenterology, Respiratory and underway for ENT, Chronic Pain, Neurology, Dermatology, Breast Services, General Surgery and Vascular Services. Orthopaedics and Ophthalmology continue to contribute through their existing national Specialty Groups.