Seòmar agus comataidhean

Scottish Ministers have asked the Marine Directorate to undertake a limited trial and pilot project with a number of inshore vessels to help gather further information to support a longer-term policy development on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).

The squid pilot project will assess the likely impact of any future squid fishery through the collection of scientific data related to cod and other non-target stocks. Scottish Government will publish findings following evaluation of the pilot project.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. This information would therefore need to be requested from the Health Boards. There have been no national tenders since the pandemic, during which time private hospitals supported with cancer treatment. Whilst the Scottish Government works with Health Boards through planning to make best use of existing NHS resources and capacity, it is for Health Boards locally to determine how they use the private sector and to agree any contractual arrangements. The Scottish Government no longer provides direct funding for planned care for private providers.

Health Boards are encouraged to improve waiting times through engaging with the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, a national unit designed to sustainably improve and transform Scotland's health care system through innovation, collaboration and clinical leadership.

Public Health Scotland publish annual information on cataract procedures in our Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information (annual) publication.

The publication does not have weekly figures but annual figures for cataract procedures between financial year 2019-20 to financial year 2023-24 can be found within the ‘Eye’ grouping in table 7 of our publication. This table includes splits by admission type and by health board of treatment and can be downloaded here.

Under the landing obligation all Scottish vessels are required to report all catch.

The number of vessels that have reported squid catch or bycatch in the five years up to 2024 are set out in the following table.

We must recognise that our health service has experienced unprecedented pressures over the past few years, including pandemic backlogs, staff shortages and the most difficult winter the NHS has ever faced, with the pausing of all non-emergency treatment inevitably leading to planned care delays and an increase in waiting times.

We have remobilised services but understand that activity levels are still lower than we would wish them to be. Patients requiring urgent care, including cancer treatment, are being prioritised. The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering reductions in waiting times.

Our Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care. More than £106 million has been allocated to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations.

Squid fishing is a sporadic fishery with the majority of landings of squid occurring between May to October. Historically squid has been present in the Moray Firth and is becoming prevalent in Shetland.

The information you have requested to do with the areas of Scotland’s inshore waters where squid fishing has taken place is not held by the Scottish Government. It is not possible to separate landings of squid between inshore and offshore waters and so it is not possible to provide a breakdown of squid fisheries within inshore waters.

There is limited evidence about the impacts of targeted squid fishery and associated bycatches. The occurrence of squid in samples of bycatch from the Nephrops fleet is rare. The Marine Directorate is undertaking a limited trial with a number of inshore vessels to help gather information and evidence on bycatch within inshore areas to support a longer-term policy decision on fishing for squid.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case in the Stage of Treatment (SoT) publication. The latest publication release contains data up to quarter ending 31 March 2025.

At 31 March 2025, there were 5,262 waits over two years for an outpatient appointment.

Trend information of the wait experienced by patients whilst still on the waiting list (ongoing waits) can be found in the ‘Waits over 52 weeks’ data table in sheets ‘Table 3.1.1’ for new outpatient appointments, and ‘Table 3.2.1’ for inpatient or day case admissions. The data is ongoing from 31 December 2019 onwards and can be filtered by health board and specialty: waits_over_52_weeks_may25.xlsx

In Scottish waters, Loligo forbesi have a spawning period extending from January to May, with the most intensive period from February to March. Loligo vulgaris are a rare sight in Scottish waters, being more commonly found in southern North Sea and the English Channel, and they spawn during December to April (with a peak between December and February).

Sources:

Graham J. Pierce, Peter R. Boyle, Lee C. Hastie, Linda Key (1994) The life history of Loligo forbesi (Cephalopoda: Loliginidae) in Scottish waters. Fisheries Research, 21(1–2,) pp. 17-41, ISSN 0165-7836.

Vladimir Laptikhovsky, A Louise Allcock, Leigh Barnwall, Christopher Barrett, Gavan Cooke, Christian Drerup, Christopher Firmin, Sophie Lozach, Eleanor MacLeod, Daniel Oesterwind, Michael Petroni, Jean-Paul Robin, Edel Sheerin, Anne-Marie Power, Graham J Pierce (2022), Spatial and temporal variability of spawning and nursery grounds of Loligo forbesii and Loligo vulgaris squids in ecoregions of Celtic Seas and Greater North Sea, ICES Journal of Marine Science,79 (6), 1918–1930, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac128.

We are not able to provide you with this information as no stock assessments have been undertaken for squid in recent years.