Seòmar agus comataidhean

As set out in my answer to question S6W-25994 on 18 March 2024, we remain committed to delivering the £10 million long COVID Support Fund in full. The 2024-25 budget published on 19 December 2023 outlines our plans to make £3 million from the long COVID Support Fund available over 2024-25.

We will process NHS Boards’ first tranche of their total 2024-25 allocations from the fund early in the financial year. The second tranche will be made later in the financial year following progress reporting.

We anticipate that the remainder of the funding will be allocated over the financial year 2025-26.

Public Health Scotland estimates that approximately 500 individuals, equivalent to 7% of the cohort living with HIV in Scotland, are undiagnosed.

A range of testing initiatives are being implemented to encourage people to access HIV testing. The Scottish Government’s Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan, published in November 2023, has a focus on improving access to sexually transmitted infection and blood borne virus testing across Scotland. To support this, we have funded a range of projects to expand access and promote uptake of testing, including the development of a national online postal self-sampling service, HIV self-testing and community-based services delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust, and piloting emergency department opt-out testing in NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian and NHS Highland.

Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out further actions to encourage people to access testing and to identify optimal approaches to finding people living with undiagnosed HIV.

Thanks to an additional £80 million of funding from the Scottish Government in 2023-24, Police Scotland have invested in their workforce - recruiting almost 600 officers in 2023 alone and around 1,480 new officers since the beginning of 2022.

Police Scotland will be welcoming an additional 200 officers in March with further intakes planned throughout the year.

Police Scotland statistics indicate that 355 officers were in the Dumfries and Galloway Divisional area on 31 December 2023 an increase of seven officers on the same point in 2022.

The recruitment and deployment of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority, and it is for Police Scotland to determine recruitment and retention approaches both locally and nationally. I am pleased that the Chief Constable has confirmed that the 2024-25 budget will enable Police Scotland to retain numbers in the region of 16,500 to 16,600 officers.

Firstly the Scottish Government’s sympathies are with the family and friends of those affected by these tragic accidents. The Scottish Government is clear that one life lost on our roads is one too many. However, as police investigations into these accidents are on-going it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this time.

The A84, the route on which one of these tragic accidents occurred, is part of the Scottish Trunk Road Network between Kildean Roundabout at Stirling and the A85 junction at Lochearnhead. Other public roads in the Stirling area are the responsibility of the local authority. Therefore it is for the relevant roads authority responsible for the route to consider appropriate measures which will safeguard road users and residents, and to determine the priority that should be given to any road safety measures.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing casualties on Scotland’s roads, this is why in 2023-24 £9.5m was dedicated to a Road Safety Improvement Fund which has supported local authorities to reduce casualties and risks on their roads through the implementation of Safe System measures. Stirling Council was allocated a total of £245,689.

Each year Transport Scotland, through its Operating Companies, undertakes a review of collisions on the trunk road network to identify cluster sites, or routes with recorded collisions that may be worthwhile of further investigation. The screening process, together with a detailed understanding of collision trends around the network, results in a prioritised programme of sites that will be investigated further. This evidence led approach ensures that resources can be targeted at locations where the greatest potential for casualty reduction is available. This approach has been successful in reducing casualties across Scotland’s trunk road network.

In regards to the A84 trunk road, Transport Scotland is implementing a 40mph speed limit reduction from Kildean to north of the Auction Mart roundabout and investigating active travel improvements in this area. In addition, an investigation into potential road safety and active travel improvements around Kincardine-in-Menteith Primary School is also underway. This is complemented by signing improvements at Kilmahog and consideration of both a new 20mph speed limit at Strathyre and an extension to the 20mph speed limit at Callander.

Transport Scotland will continue to monitor road safety on the A84 and progress investigations and improvements as appropriate.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council to maximise apprenticeship opportunities and ensure that employers wishing to take on an apprentice are supported and able to do so.

Scottish Apprenticeship Week (SAW) is an annual campaign coordinated by Skills Development Scotland, which took place 4-8 March 2024, providing the opportunity to highlight the benefits of apprenticeships to individuals, employers and learning providers. For employers who have not engaged with apprenticeships, SAW is a chance to discover how work-based learning can develop their workforce, improve performance and productivity and contribute to business growth.

The Developing the Young Workforce Employer-led Groups also facilitate engagement between employers and schools to highlight the importance of vocational pathways, including the range of apprenticeship opportunities available, and support young people to transition into work.

We do not know the numbers of children affected because the information has not been collected historically.

In response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (IMMDSR), the Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to establish a medicines in pregnancy surveillance asset. This resource will support monitoring and reporting to progress improvements in the safe use of valproate and other teratogenic medicines in Scotland. Its first output is due to be published by PHS in April 2024 and will include prescribing data and trends for valproate and other anti-seizure medicines.

As outlined in the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal, published on 1 December 2022, our aim is to achieve ‘zero people contracting HIV within Scotland by 2030’. To do so, one of the key interim targets is to achieve 100 or fewer first ever diagnoses per year by the end of 2025.

The most recently published HIV data for Scotland (to 31 December 2022), released by Public Health Scotland on 26 September 2023, indicate that, since 2017, the annual number of first ever diagnoses recorded in Scotland has more than halved, decreasing from 226 in 2017 to 108 in 2022. Of note, 55 of 108 (51%) first ever diagnoses recorded in 2022 were thought likely to have been acquired within Scotland.

In addition, the data indicate a small proportion (11%) of first ever HIV diagnoses were recently acquired (i.e. within the previous three to four months). This is the lowest number and proportion for over five years and is, in part, the result of the Scottish Government’s world-leading approach to making HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis available on the NHS in 2017.

Following careful consideration by the HIV Transmission Elimination Scoping Group, and the advice of clinical and public health experts, the Scottish Government is not planning to introduce a national HIV testing week at this time. Given Scotland’s relatively low HIV prevalence, the potential benefits of a national testing week would primarily be in addressing stigma and promoting testing rather than finding and supporting individuals with undiagnosed infections. Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out our approach to addressing stigma and promoting testing on a consistent, year-round basis.

We will review the potential costs and benefits of a national testing week once priority actions to expand capacity and improve access to testing have been progressed.

There are no imminent plans to expand emergency department opt-out blood borne virus testing to other areas. It is important that decisions about any further expansion are based on the best available evidence. The Scottish Government will use evaluation data from the current pilot projects, combined with other evidence, to determine whether further roll out would be acceptable, deliverable and cost-effective in Scotland.

Local evaluation will be conducted by the team at NHS Grampian and will be followed by an overarching review of the three emergency department opt-out testing projects announced by myself last November.