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Health and Wellbeing is one of the eight curricular areas in Curriculum for Excellence. Learning in Health and Wellbeing is designed to ensure children and young people develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, capabilities and attributes which they need for mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing.

While the Curriculum for Excellence framework is set at a national level, it is up to local authorities and schools to determine how they will deliver the curriculum to best suit the children and young people in their area. Local authorities and schools will use a range of approaches and resources to support children and young people with their mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing in line with local needs and circumstances. This can include learning and teaching about cardiovascular health for which there are existing learning experiences and outcomes in Health and Wellbeing and Sciences where this learning can be delivered.

Health and Wellbeing is also about the whole approach of the nursery, school, college or other setting. The concept of health and wellbeing as a responsibility of all emphasizes that everyone, including educators, parents, and community members, plays a crucial role in promoting and supporting health and wellbeing of children and young people.

The Scottish Government does intend to update its policies to reflect the 2025 recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. This Government is pressing ahead with the policy development to ensure that proposals can be brought forward to Parliament at the earliest opportunity, subject to the outcome of the 2026 elections.

The Scottish Government will seek to review and revise the current guidance in the coming months. However, this review will need to be cognisant of the likely requirements of the alignment position with the recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which proposes further measures in relation to the operation of wastewater networks.

As Scotland’s independent environmental regulator, any decisions on publishing data is for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

SEPA intends to make annual data on spills from wastewater treatment works operated by Private Finance Investment companies proactively available and aims to publish the data on its website in Autumn 2025.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to provide financial support in connection with applications for exhumation.

However, we are committed to simplifying the process as much as possible. Officials are developing regulations under the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 which will remove applications for exhumation from the courts, making the process more straightforward and less expensive for applicants.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

All overflow events at Helensburgh wastewater treatment works arose through a Settled Storm Sewage Overflow after being screened and receiving primary treatment. This process is licensed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and all overflows are monitored and reported.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already installed 1,000 event duration monitors to meet the commitment set out within its Improving Urban Waters Routemap. Scottish Water plans to go beyond this commitment and install a further 700 this year, aiming to cover around 50% of overflows. Scottish Water has installed 135 of these further monitors in 2025.

Whilst the Scottish Government sets the strategic direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including staffing and the recruitment of graduates is the responsibility of health boards as autonomous institutions.

Whilst graduates can apply to join the NHS and care providers in their local area upon graduation, vacancies can fluctuate geographically each year. Alongside this, staff turnover can also vary, making recruitment of newly qualified nurses more challenging in individual health board areas. Such variations can be difficult to predict on occasion.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any evidence which suggests that significant numbers of graduate nurses are unable to secure permanent positions at this point.

Public Health Scotland continues to provide data regarding planned procedure activity prior to March 2020 in the monthly Cancelled Planned Operations release which can be accessed at Cancelled planned operations - Month Ending 30 April 2025 - Cancelled planned operations - Publications - Public Health Scotland. The ‘Cancellations data’ file provides the information needed for comparisons of time periods May 2015 to April 2025 by month and therefore able to illustrate the difference in current levels of operation activity and operation activity pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of PHS’ obligations under the UKSA Code of Practice for Statistics (found at About the Code – Code of Practice for Statistics), PHS continually review outputs to ensure they adhere to all the pillars contained within the Code of Practice. This states that “statistics and data [should be] useful, easy to access, remain relevant, and support understanding of important issues.” Upon review, the Cancelled Planned Operations summary has been adapted to align with these principles.

More specifically, in line with the principles of “Relevance to Users” and “Innovation and Improvement” the Cancelled Planned Operations commentary now reflects and highlights current trend patterns within 3 years from the latest release. The aim of the revised time trend highlighted within the summary is to meet the user need of improving access to latest trends and highlights important current information. The risk of including too much of a historic time trend in the summary chart is that it becomes more difficult to interpret these current trends. Nevertheless, the continuation of the provision of the longer time trend within the accompanying data tables, including activity prior to March 2020, allows the user to access the data if they wish to do so.

Latest statistics published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) in March 2025, includes data on cervical and ovarian cancer waiting times, between 1st October and 31st December 2024.

This data shows that 96.6% of women with cervical cancer and 98.4% of women with ovarian cancer are receiving their first treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. This compares with 94.7% for all other cancer types. This is a median wait of 14 and 13 days respectively, with 4 days being the median for all other cancer types.

51.7% of women with cervical cancer and 73.3% of women with ovarian cancer are receiving their first treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral of cancer. This compares to 73.5% for all other cancer types. This is a median wait of 62 and 50 days respectively, with 49 days being the median for all other cancer types.

Scottish Government is continuing to take action to improve waiting times, with £14.23 million of the £106 million planned care funding made available in 2025-26 across NHS Scotland, directed towards Cancer Waiting Times.