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I met with members of The Oversight Board for The Promise on Tuesday 4th February 2025. I also attended the Parliamentary reception on 27th February, organised by The Oversight Board and attended by their members, to celebrate publication of the Third Report by The Oversight Board.

The specific information - the number of hours NHS staff have spent on trainee research as part of protected development working time - requested is not gathered or held centrally by Scottish Government. This is a matter for the individual Health Boards.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting NHS Scotland staff development and career progression. As part of the 2023-24 pay deal, Agenda for Change staff have reaffirmed rights to Protected Learning Time (PLT), ensuring access to essential training - including statutory, mandatory, and profession-specific learning - within working hours. Health Boards are expected to support this through consistent policies, including study leave where appropriate. A national PLT Implementation Group is leading work to ensure all NHS staff have equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities, regardless of role or location.

All cancers, including breast, remain a national priority, within the Scottish Government and across NHS Scotland. That is why we published our Cancer strategy 2023 to 2033 - gov.scot along with an initial three year Cancer action plan 2023 to 2026 - gov.scot on 15 June 2023.

The strategy and plan take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care.

We know that the earlier cancer is diagnosed the easier it is to treat and even cure which is why we continue to invest in our Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) Programme, initially launched in 2012.

The Programme takes a whole-systems approach to early detection and encompasses primary care, diagnostics, public education, data, innovation and screening.

A Detect Cancer Earlier campaign – Be The Early Bird - launched on March 2023 aiming to reduce fear of cancer and empower those with possible symptoms to act early. This campaign ran for a second time in March 2025 and is due to run again in the coming months.

Scottish Government has also commissioned the Scottish Cancer Network to collaboratively develop national clinical management pathways. One of the first, addressing breast cancer, was published in 2023.

Clinical management pathways are developed through consensus and outline the patient journey from diagnosis through to follow-up or end of life care. The pathways describe the treatment options at the various points in each pathway to support shared decision making. The use of these pathways throughout NHS Scotland supports clinicians in their decision making enabling them to improve outcomes for patients with breast cancer.

Further to this, Scottish Government is continuing to take action to improve waiting times with £14.23 million of the £110 million in additional planned care funding for 2025-26 to Cancer Waiting Times, with a focus on colorectal, urological and breast as our most challenged pathways.

There are studies that show a developing evidence base for the use of mifepristone in breast cancer prevention as outlined in the opinion piece in The Lancet.

The regulation for the licensing, safety and efficacy of medicines is currently reserved to the UK Government and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA is also responsible for enabling innovation, research and development that is beneficial to public health, including overseeing clinical trials which underpin evidence based practice. Clinical trials are an important part of the pathway by which a new medicinal product or a new use of an existing medicine can be marketed for use as a new treatment.

Before a medicine can be marketed, a pharmaceutical company must be able to demonstrate its safety, quality and efficacy. A marketing authorisation (sometimes called a licence) is granted to market a medicine for a specific indication (condition) and not to the medicine itself. The decision to apply for a marketing authorisation for a new medicine or new indication is for a pharmaceutical company to make. In doing so they must include data from clinical trials and other studies demonstrating the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicine. After detailed assessment and providing the data is satisfactory, a marketing authorisation may be granted.

NHS Research Scotland holds a record of the number of clinical studies that Health Boards participate in each year. These data are held from 2014 to present and indicate a range of study numbers from 1464 to 1711 over this time period.

Noting that clinical studies can be carried out across multiple Health Boards at the same time, Table 1 reports the total number of unique clinical studies per year, and Table 2 reports the number of clinical studies per Health Board per year.

As previously committed to, the Scottish Government’s consultation on the updating of the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967 will commence before the end of this year; the revised regulations will be introduced thereafter.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data.

The opening of a Scottish Government office in Warsaw is currently under review given ongoing budget pressures.

Any preparations in relation to the proposals for the opening of a Scottish Government office in Warsaw have been undertaken by officials with the Directorate for Culture and External Affairs as part of normal business.

The opening of a Scottish Government office in Warsaw is currently under review given ongoing budget pressures.