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NHS Scotland health care workers supporting those with blood cancer are from a wide range of professions, often supporting patients with other conditions too. There are no plans to model a blood cancer care workforce specifically.

National standards for staffing and facilities providing services are set by guidance such as the Staff Governance Standard. This applies to all staff employed by NHS Scotland Boards. It provides a system of accountability for the fair and effective management of all staff and requires all NHS Boards to demonstrate that staff are: well informed; appropriately trained and developed; involved in decisions; treated fairly and consistently, with dignity and respect, in an environment where diversity is valued; and, provided with a continuously improving and safe working environment, promoting the health and wellbeing of staff, patients and the wider community.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) records all tumours using the ICD-O3 classification and is therefore able to routinely report on blood cancers in many different ways. This includes a variety of benchmarks such as incidence rates, quality performance indicators and survival.

The Scottish Government is keen to ensure that local areas provide support at all times and that they assess the needs of people in their areas and work with them to design and deliver services in a way that meets the needs of people impacted by drugs and alcohol.

Through our National Mission we are providing around £250 million of investment to support local areas to assess and meet their local needs.

The key group responsible for co-ordinating the national cancer registries of all the UK nations, as well as the Republic of Ireland, is the UK and Ireland Association of Cancer Registries (UKIACR). Achieving consistency and comparability in the collection, analysis and reporting of cancer data are among the UKIACR’s Terms of Reference. The Director of the Scottish Cancer Registry represents Scotland on this group.

The UK and Ireland cancer registries all adhere, where possible, to the recommendations of the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR).

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce a transition course for paramedics unable to find employment with the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The Scottish Government sets policies and frameworks at a national level, and it is the role of Health Boards, as the employers, to recruit graduates through a fair and consistent recruitment practice. When making recruitment decisions, Health Boards have to consider current turnover, retention, absence rates and budgets.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is in the process of recruiting paramedic positions for the remainder of the 2024-25 financial year.

We continue to work with SAS to explore how the role of a paramedic can expand into primary and secondary care further, offering new and different employment opportunities.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to reduce waiting times, significant activity is already underway following an additional £30 million investment to target backlogs, announced in the spring1.

This will see around 12,000 new outpatient appointments, around 12,000 inpatient procedures and over 40,000 diagnostic procedures delivered2. A breakdown of the committed funding at both Specialty & Health Board levels are shown in the tables. The final allocations will be made to respective NHS boards following delivery of the activity.

We will continue to work with all NHS boards to maximise current resources and productivity. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29287 on 12 September 2024. 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.

The Scottish Government believes that all women in Scotland should have access to abortion services, available free from stigma.

In the 2023 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government committed to undertake a review of the law on abortion. An expert group chaired by Professor Anna Glasier, the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Champion, has been set up to help take forward this review. The review aims to identify potential proposals for reform, within specified term limits, before the end of this parliament. The Scottish Government will consider the recommendations made within the report carefully as part of this review. As such, the Scottish Government plans to wait for the outcomes of the review before commenting in more detail on the recommendations set out in Engender’s report.

Engender represent members of the advisory group of women’s rights organisations on this expert group, and will be able to feed their views into the review.

Details of the expert group, including minutes of their meetings are published on the Scottish Government website here: Abortion Law Review Expert Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Once the expert group has completed its work, the Scottish Government will consider any recommendations or options proposed. Any proposals for changes to abortion law would be subject to a public consultation.

The business rates incentivisation scheme (BRIS) was suspended in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 due to the disruptive impact of COVID on NDR revenues, as confirmed in Local government finance circular 8/2021: business rates incentivisation scheme 2019-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)there was therefore no revenue retained by any council in 2022-23, retentions generally affecting the following year’s non-domestic rates income.

Non-domestic rates incentivisation scheme (NDRIS, formerly BRIS) retention amounts relating to 2023-24 will be made available at the earliest opportunity, these amounts will be reported in councils provisional NDR outturn returns following the end of the current financial year.

Local government finance circular 1/2024: Non Domestic Rates Incentivisation Scheme 2023 to 2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) details final NDRIS targets for 2023-24 and provisional targets for 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Local authorities are independent bodies, and it is for them to consider whether to use the powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to deliver local reliefs. The Scottish Government includes information on these powers in its Local government finance circular 5/2024: non-domestic rates relief guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) issued to local authorities annually.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-30449 on 22 October 2024. 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.