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The Scottish Government commissioned Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) is playing a central role in working with Health Boards to ensure that they are able to continually identify new ways to increase capacity, and to respond to demand through service innovation and redesign.

CfSD programmes have developed strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG), including one for Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT), which promote multidisciplinary team working, and support local adoption of service improvement programmes. These groups are now well established and have supported several new and innovative pathway developments to free-up additional capacity in the NHS system, many of which are now being successfully scaled up across Scotland. For ENT this includes Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT), Discharge Patient Initiated Review (PIR) and Opt-In Pathways.

We know there is more to do but we are making progress; since the introduction of our long wait targets in July 2022, ENT waits over two years have reduced by 93% for new outpatient appointments and by 54% for inpatient and day-case patients.

The Scottish Government does not hold information about the types or numbers of funeral services in Scotland and does not make an assessment of trends in funeral choices.

Unattended funerals are most often direct cremations where there is no funeral service at a crematorium. Sometimes these are arranged as a preference by the deceased or by their relatives who might arrange a separate wake or celebration of the deceased’s life.

According to the recent Sunlife Cost of Dying report published in January 2024, the cost of a basic funeral rose from £3,953 in 2022 to £4,141 in 2023, an increase of 4.7%. The report shows there has been an increase in direct cremations over the past five years with 3% of funerals described as a direct cremation in 2019, rising to 20% in 2023. Direct cremations are often seen as a more affordable option but according to the Sunlife report there are various other reasons for choosing this option; this is often requested by the deceased or chosen because it is simpler to organise.

Issues relating to pricing and consumer protection are reserved to the UK Government. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) publish an annual review of market outcomes in the UK funerals sector and the most recent is available at: Review of funerals sector - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) . Officials continue to engage with the CMA as required in relation to their Funeral Markets Investigation and the upcoming regulations for inspection of the funeral industry and licensing of funeral directors being made under the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016.

The Scottish Government is aware of the Scottish Prison Service’s (SPS) intention to maintain existing trade union arrangements for public sector prisons and the transferring staffing group will be covered by those existing arrangements.

It is SPS’s view that their existing trade union relationships are working well and that to recognise a further trade union with collective bargaining rights for the same group of staff, i.e. prison officers, would unnecessarily complicate the trade union landscape.

CalMac currently expects that there will be two tankers a week per vessel to operate the service. CalMac will review the fuel requirements once the new vessels are in operation and make any necessary changes to supply requirements.

The anticipated spend on the HMP Kilmarnock transition project for 2023-24 is £1.5m.

In 2024-25, the total running costs of HMP Kilmarnock are anticipated around £18.6m, to accommodate around 600 people. This figure excludes the uplift for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 pay rise which is currently being processed. Final costs will depend on the date of any harmonisation of the existing staff group to SPS terms and conditions, and the actual spending within the financial year.

The price of the HMP Kilmarnock contract in the final year of the contract (year 25) is £19.5m for 596 prisoner places. This figure does not include the direct public sector costs of managing, monitoring and supporting the contract. There is no comparable price for private operation of HMP Kilmarnock in 2024-25 as the contract would have been retendered in this scenario using different pricing models. Hypothetically, if the existing terms of the contract went into a notional 26 th year, indexation of around 5.1% would have been applied.

The Women's Health Plan: A Plan for 2021-24 sets out 66 actions to improve women’s health inequalities across the short-term (year one), medium-term (year one to three) and longer-term (year three and beyond).

The Women’s Health Plan First and Second Annual Reports on Progress set out the progress made to date on delivering the Plan.

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

HMP Glasgow will deliver safe and secure accommodation, with maximum possible benefit and opportunity to those who live and work there, as well as the surrounding communities.

The new prison will provide a better quality of living environment and enable strong relationships with staff and those in our care. Based on the current plans, HMP Glasgow has a design capacity of 1344.

The review on abortion law will begin once the Scottish Parliament has considered the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government is working towards convening an expert group, which the Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, has agreed to chair. The Scottish Government is also starting discussions with other stakeholders who are likely to advise the expert group on particular topics. The expert group will be asked to set out options and any recommendations for reforms. These recommendations, along with other stakeholder input, will be considered by Ministers before setting out any proposals for potential reform.

Health Boards are responsible for delivering abortion services as part of their overall budgets, in a similar way to most other health services. Therefore the Scottish Government does not determine how much is allocated to the provision of abortion services. Health Boards will decide appropriate levels of funding for their requirements within their overall funding.

The Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, has not met with the First Minister. The Champion meets with myself on a quarterly basis.