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NHS Scotland currently offers a whole gene screening panel for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer to test for faults in both BRCA1 and BRCA2 and a range of other target genes. At present, this testing is available to people from specific population groups (including those of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage) if they meet clinical criteria that indicate a higher genetic risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

The Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine (SSNGM) was established in 2022 to develop a fully considered and sustainable genomic medicine service for Scotland. The SSNGM contains specialist Scottish Genomics Test Advisory Groups (SG-TAG) for both cancer and rare and inherited conditions, whose role is to review and assess the clinical validity and utility of new tests, and changes to the referral criteria for existing tests.

The SSNGM plan to initiate a review of the existing hereditary cancer testing pathways in 2024. This review will include both the referral criteria for our existing genomic test offering and alternative testing methods and will make recommendations via the SG-TAG process.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Protecting the health, safety, and wellbeing of all people in Scotland’s prisons is at the heart of SPS’ newly published Policy for the Management of Transgender People in Custody (2023).

The SPS engaged with approximately 400 people during the review of the SPS Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy (2014), and the SPS has no record of any communication from Professor Jo Phoenix during this period.

As set out in the Scottish Governments Draft budget published on 19 December 2023, the capital funding position is extremely challenging due to the UK Government’s decision to cut our capital budget by nearly 10%, a cumulative capital cut of £1.6bn. That has inevitably led to some difficult decisions on what capital projects will be progressed. In common with all health capital investment projects in development, the National Treatment Centres have been paused until the necessary capital funding to complete the project becomes available.

As set out in the Scottish Government's Draft budget published on 19 December 2023, the capital funding position is extremely challenging due to the UK Government’s decision to cut our capital budget by nearly 10% a cumulative capital cut of £1.6bn. That has inevitably led to some difficult decisions on what capital projects will be progressed. In common with all health capital investment projects in development, the National Treatment Centres have been paused until the necessary capital funding to complete the project becomes available.

The Ukraine Longer-Term Resettlement Fund (ULTRF) has so far brought 1238 homes back into use spanning 19 projects with a total investment of over £25 million. Fife Council have not applied to the Fund and therefore no funding has been made available to them through this route.

The OBC indicates a total of 472 total beds. In addition to 92 assessment and observation beds the breakdown is as follows:

All Scottish territorial Health Boards are committed to delivering the Universal Health Visiting Pathway (UHVP).

The collection of UHVP coverage data across the 11 pathway visits is managed at a Health Board level. However, Official Statistics on the coverage of 5 of those visits (first visit, 6-8 week visit and all 3 child health reviews) are published annually by Public Health Scotland (PHS) Child health pre-school review coverage 2021 to 2022 - Child health pre-school review coverage - Publications - Public Health Scotland .

Scottish Government policy officials also liaise regularly with Health Visiting leads through their national network and dedicated discussions with individual Boards.

The following table shows the number of homes approved from applications received from (a) registered social landlords (b) local authorities since the National Acquisition Programme was announced on 19 July 2023. This information is to 31 January 2024:

The Heart Disease Action Plan recognises the need to ensure timely and equitable access to diagnostics, including echocardiography. We remain committed to supporting Boards to target resources to reduce waiting times through service innovation and redesign.

This includes the Centre for Sustainable Delivery's (CfSD) Accelerated National Innovation Adoption Pathway (ANIA) which focuses on using technology to fast-track proven innovations into the healthcare frontline that will improve patient outcomes.

As part of this work, CfSD is currently considering the roll out of innovations that optimise delivery of the heart failure diagnostic pathway, in which access to echocardiography is an important component.

The information requested on what the current vacancy rate is for cardiac physiologists in NHS Scotland is not centrally available.

Information on Healthcare Science staff in post and cardiology consultants, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence .