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There is no specific provision for long COVID research in the Scottish Government Budget for 2024-25.

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO).

The CSO's Translational Clinical Studies (TCS) Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research (HIPS) Committee each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website.

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

Applications on long-COVID are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through the CSO's standard independent peer review process.

To date 2 research projects on long COVID have been funded via this route:

HIPS/23/08

Long COVID And Frontline Public Service Occupations: Impacts On Employees And Organisations

University of Stirling

Dr Alice MacLean/Professor Kate Hunt

Funding awarded £296,960

HIPS/22/33

Caring for Long COVID in Primary Care: Using Patient and Professional Experience to Build Co-Designed Solutions. A Participatory, Mixed Methods Study.

University of Glasgow

Professor Catherine O’Donnell

Funding awarded £297,900

Through UK-wide funding agreements, researchers based in Scotland are able to access the following research funding programmes administered by the National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR):

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME)

Evidence Synthesis

Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR)

Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

Invention for Innovation (i4i)

Programme Development Grants (PDG)

Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR)

Public Health Research (PHR)

Research for Social Care (RfSC)

Within their individual remits, the above programmes can consider applications for research in long COVID.

CSO is working with the health research community in Scotland to ensure awareness of these opportunities and to maximise the number of high quality applications from Scotland to these research funding programmes going forward.

The Scottish Government has listened to concerns that independent hospices have about the recruitment and retention of staff, and will continue to do so.

As Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) are responsible for the governance, planning, and resourcing of adult palliative care services, including hospices, using the integrated budget under their control, we will continue to work with Chief Officers to support longer term sustainable planning and commissioning for the hospice sector, and will work jointly to develop a national guidance framework to support and improve consistency of local planning and commissioning.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with NHS Boards to deliver our ambition to protect, stabilise and recover planned care. This includes maximising theatre productivity, optimising capacity and regional working.

Regional cancer networks have undertaken, and continue to undertake, improvement work to reduce ovarian cancer surgery waits. This improvement work includes increasing surgery provision and regional support.

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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23323 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

The Scottish Government provides annual funding to Energy Saving Trust (EST) who are an independent organisation working to address the climate emergency. EST then deliver the Plugged-in Communities (PiC) grant fund on behalf of Scottish Ministers.

EST publish details of all PiC grant recipients along with the grant values on their website, this information can be found here - Plugged-in communities grant fund - Energy Saving Trust .

In 2023-2024 the following organisations received Plugged-in Community funding:

Annandale Community Transport Services

Beannachar Ltd

Caithness Rural Transport

Camphill School Aberdeen

Checkin Works

Coalfield Community Transport

Creich Croick & Kincardine District Day Care Association

Elder Voice

Glasgow Children’s Hospital

Glasgow No.1 Baby and Family Support Service

Handicabs (Lothian)

Healthy and Active in East Kilbride

Homeless Project Scotland

Local Energy Action Plan

Lothian Community Transport Services

Moray Carshare

South Ayrshire Community Transport

Southwest Community Transport

St Madoes and Kinfauns Parish Church

Tagsa Uibhist

The Food Train.

Transport Scotland are working closely with specialist commercial and technical advisors, Turner and Townsend, to progress development of the next Clyde and Hebrides (CHFS) contract specification. Alongside other internal and external specialists, and together with ongoing community and other key stakeholder engagement, this work will continue throughout the due diligence exercise to confirm the most effective, efficient and affordable approach delivering the CHFS network.

The British Transport Police advises that its operations in partnership with ScotRail, have seen a reduction in antisocial behaviour on Scotland’s rail network.

BTP continues to work in collaboration with ScotRail’s Travel Safe Team to reduce this number even further, and tackle any incidents of antisocial behaviour on Scotland’s Railways.

Alongside a dedicated Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service 3 team and internal specialist support on Legal, Financial & Subsidy control, the Scottish Government have engaged with external specialist technical, legal and financial advisors and will continue to engage as required to complete the necessary due diligence on a potential “Teckal” direct award.

The Multiple Supplier Framework Agreement for Maritime Consultancy Services was awarded to the following suppliers (1) Stantec UK Limited (2) Turner and Townsend Project Management Limited and (3) Fisher Advisory Ltd. Transport Scotland publishes the results of all regulated procurements via contract award notices on the Public Contracts Scotland website. The Contract Award Notice is available with the following link: https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JUN451348

a) The Health and Social Care Alliance were funded £10,776 by the Scottish Government in 2021-22 to carry out specific work to support people with chronic pain.

Since 2009, The Health and Social Care Alliance has also administered the ‘Self Management Fund’ on behalf of the Scottish Government which has included projects which support chronic pain issues. Details of funded projects can be found on The Health and Social Care Alliance’s website: Funded Projects – Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (alliance-scotland.org.uk)

The funding outlined in the following tables includes funding from the Chronic Pain Winter Support Fund which, in 2021, provided an additional £240,000 to increase the capacity of local support available for people with chronic pain during the winter period.

b) Pain Association Scotland