Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government did not provide any funding to Lochaber Sensory Care in 2022.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23955 on 9 January 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 .

Over the next two years, the Scottish Government is investing in a programme of early intervention in speech and language for children and their families through the appointment of six full-time equivalent Regional Early Speech and Language Leads based within Education Scotland.

The funding is separate from the support that the Scottish Government has provided for the Regional Improvement Collaboratives.

Scottish Government officials regularly meet all Health Boards including NHS Western Isles to discuss any challenges impacting services and to provide any necessary support.

Funding provided to NHS Boards is aligned to their NRAC shares of funding, which considers the population share of each Board adjusted for the demography including the relative health needs due to morbidity and life circumstances, and the excess cost of delivering healthcare to rural and remote areas.

a) The total number of inpatient and daycase hospital episodes here a lung volume reduction procedure was recorded, in Scotland, from April 2020 to March 2023 is 15 . This total includes two locations of treatment (i) Golden Jubilee National Hospital, National Waiting Times Centre and (ii) Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France, NHS Lothian.

Please note that figures for lung volume reduction procedures by individual location of treatment and financial year have ben aggregated to protect patient confidentiality, in accordance with our PHS Statistical Disclosure Protocol

Source: SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: 18 December 2023.

(b) This information is not held centrally.

refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23393 on 11 December 2023. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-23303 on 11 December 2023 and S6W-16651 on 21 April 2023. 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 University of Edinburgh advised approximately 200-250 of their students per year attend undergraduate medical placements at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion since 1999. The University of Aberdeen advised that one student had attended in 2023 with no other Scottish Medical School reporting sending any students.

It should be noted that undergraduate medical students in Scotland other than those from the University of Edinburgh are not routinely sent to Edinburgh for Ophthalmology placements.

The Scottish Government is aware of instances of women who have faced significant delays in accessing ovarian cancer surgery in the west of Scotland. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the surgery for ovarian cancer, scheduling can be challenging for health boards. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) has advised that action is being taken to simplify scheduling of these cases and thus reduce delays.

Actions taken have included increasing dedicated theatre capacity and improving joint working across surgical teams. The health board is working to increase dedicated time for surgeons from the colorectal, urology, plastic and hepato-pancreatic biliary teams to operate jointly with gynaecology oncology. The surgical team is now bigger, with further training in hand. There has been an increase in weekly operating lists and planning continues to improve around increased access to other surgical specialties.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery is leading improvement work and pathway redesign via their clinically led specialty delivery group (SDG) for gynaecology. This includes in-depth peer review meetings involving all Boards in NHS Scotland to ensure gynaecology patients are on the right pathway at the right time, supporting improvements in waiting times and patient outcomes.

The Scottish Cancer Network will be establishing a new National Ovarian Cancer Clinical Network, which will work to ensure equity of access to treatment for all women with ovarian cancer in Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognizes the importance of natural flood management (NFM) measures in reducing, slowing or otherwise managing flood waters across catchments and along the coast while also delivering multiple environmental benefits. The Scottish Government provides funding to improve and restore catchment processes including hydrological processes through the Water Environment Fund, Peatland Restoration Fund, Nature Restoration Fund and Forestry Grants scheme.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information on the total number of NFM schemes currently operating across Scotland. The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 recognises the important role of, promotes and encourages the use of NFM techniques, however, the responsibility for the development and delivery of flood protection schemes rests with individual local authorities, who are best placed to respond to local resilience needs. The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities to facilitate this.

Effective catchment management requires all of Scotland's land owners and land managers to play their part. As such, individual landowners may decide to operate their own NFM schemes, and there is no requirement for them to notify Ministers of such activity. However, we encourage everyone operating a scheme and interested in this field to join the Scottish Government funded NFM Network Scotland which has been set up to share knowledge and best practice amongst those working with NFM projects, research or activities.