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Early intervention is defined as the commencement of any necessary treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis. The Scottish Government’s Quality Indicator profile includes a measure of the percentage of first presentation psychosis patients that start SIGN or NICE guideline evidence based treatment within 14 calendar days of referral to specialist mental health services.

The improvement work, as articulated in our Vision, will ensure that people presenting for the first time with psychosis anywhere in Scotland will have timely access to effective care and treatment, with early intervention and a focus on recovery.

People with recurring and long term mental illness require good primary and secondary mental health care and treatment. This is the responsibility of local providers including NHS Boards and HSCPs, and the Scottish Government expects that anyone with recurring psychosis will continue to receive the right treatment at the right time.

Our Vision paper lays the groundwork for a nationwide improvement in EI Psychosis services, and all patients experiencing psychosis (including those with recurring psychosis) will further benefit from this improvement work as it moves forward.

Our commitment to improving Early Intervention Psychosis (EIP) services is reflected in Action 26 of the Mental Health Strategy, as well as in the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce Delivery Plan. The allocation of additional funding reflects that EIP is a policy priority for the Scottish Government, and our Vision to Improve Early Intervention in Psychosis in Scotland provides detail of how these commitments will be taken forward.

The first stage of our two-stage process, as outlined in our Vision, involves an EIP Improvement Network carrying out a national needs assessment, and conducting dedicated improvement work with two NHS Boards. The second phase of the process will be guided by the EIP Improvement Network's recommendations, and will involve the phased implementation of better EIP services and support across Scotland.

More generally, there are powerful arguments for improving EIP services. These are articulated in our Vision paper, including perspectives from people with lived experience. Psychosis can be an acutely serious mental health condition with potentially life-changing consequences. It is therefore vital that we provide the right help for people presenting for the first time with psychosis. There is also a volume of evidence showing that EIP is a highly effective approach, both in terms of clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness.

We are making excellent progress towards our target of delivering 50,000, affordable homes, 35,000 of which will be for social rent, backed by a record investment of £3.3 billion.

The most recently published Quarterly Housing Statistics show that since April 2016 to end March 2019, we have delivered 25,405 affordable homes, 16,419 of which are for social rent – keeping us well on track to deliver our ambitious target over the course of this Parliament.

This government can be very proud of its record on affordable housing having now delivered more than 86,000 affordable homes since 2007.

I can confirm that a working group, chaired by CELCIS, met on 20 May to start a time-limited process aimed at developing an improved pathway to prevent homelessness for people with experience of care. As a result of this meeting, the group is in the process of considering the specific actions required to improve the housing journey of young care experienced people in Scotland. Members will discuss this in further detail at meetings scheduled for 30 July and 28 August.

Policy officials have started preliminary work to understand the experience of people who are homeless as a result of domestic abuse, alongside a wider piece of work on equalities across the Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan. A number of internal meetings have taken place with teams from across the Scottish Government to understand more about the context, raise awareness, and identify the right external stakeholders to take the work forward. In addition, we are currently considering an appropriate platform to develop a domestic abuse prevention pathway by summer 2020.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 gives every carer a right to an adult carer support plan or young carer statement. This is a personalised plan, focusing on what matters to the individual carer. If the carer has eligible needs in their plan which meet the local eligibility criteria, they must be offered support to meet those needs. Carers also have the right to decide how they receive this support by choosing from the four self-directed support options.

The Scottish Government is fully funding implementation of the Carers Act by providing £17.4 million to local authorities in 2018-19 and an additional £10.5 million in 2019-20, which reflects the projected increase in demand. We expect to see local budgets increasing by this amount compared to the funding for 2018-19.

Under the Act, each local authority and health board must jointly prepare and publish a local carer strategy. This strategy must set out an assessment of the demand for support to relevant carers and the extent to which this demand is currently not being met. The statutory guidance to accompany the Act encourages local authorities to use this assessment to plan for meeting current and future needs, including unmet need.

Carers can access universal, preventative support in the community without having received an adult carer support plan or young carer statement.

In addition to funding for the Carers Act, the Scottish Government is providing £3 million in 2019-20 for the voluntary-sector Short Breaks Fund. The Fund provides four distinct programmes which offer different short breaks opportunities to a range of carers and their families.

The Scottish Government is strongly opposed to the inappropriate use of zero hour contracts. Our Fair Work Action Plan commits us to work with partners to consider and respond to the recommendations set out in the Fair Work Convention’s Social Care Inquiry Report to ensure that fair work is embedded in the delivery of social care services including the procurement process. This includes the recommendation for key stakeholders to develop and agree appropriate minimum contract standards for the provision of publicly-funded social care services, consistent with the Fair Work Framework and the Scottish Government’s Fair Work First initiative.

Fair Work First asks employers to commit to:

• investment in skills and training
• no inappropriate use of zero hours contracts (for example using zero hours contracts when people are working regular hours; exclusive contracts that stop flexible workers working for other people)
• action to tackle the gender pay gap
• genuine workforce engagement such as trade union or employee association recognition, and
• payment of the real Living Wage

The Fair Work Convention’s report made a number of recommendations relating to fair work and the social care sector and the Scottish Government is working with COSLA and other stakeholders such as the STUC, care providers including the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland and the Fair Work Convention to finalise the process which will support the implementation of these recommendations.

The Scottish Government has acted to secure improvement in social care and that is why the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and Councillor Currie, COSLA spokesperson for Health and Social Care, launched a national programme to support local reform of social care on 12 June. The programme contains a commissioning and procurement workstream.

In 2015 the Scottish Government undertook an advertising campaign at a cost of circa. £65,000 to highlight the misuse of disabled persons parking places and blue badges; no other spend has been recorded in the period 2014 to 2019. Analysis was undertaken to gauge the overall impact of the campaign which was found to have had a positive impact, including promotion of engagement across a range of social media.

We are committed to undertaking a wide ranging media campaign in relation to the proposed national ban on pavement and double parking being progressed as part of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. The campaign will tackle all forms of inconsiderate parking, including misuse of disabled persons parking places.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-23920 on 9 July 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