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The Scottish Government expects NHS Health Boards to follow the recommendations in the National Clinical Guideline for Stroke for the UK and Ireland, published in April. The ultimate decision about a particular clinical procedure or treatment will always depend on each individual patient’s condition, circumstances and wishes, and the clinical judgement of the healthcare team.

The Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF) funds Community Link Workers (CLWs) as part of primary care multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs).

As at March 2023, there were 97.7 WTE Community Links Workers working in NHS board provided services within Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. Within this, 94.9 FTE were funded through the Primary Care Improvement Fund and 2.8 FTE were funded through other sources.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19301 on 4 July 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 .

This is a matter for NHS Health Boards. The information requested is not held centrally.

Work is ongoing to establish the most effective means of further expanding access to thrombectomy, to maximise the number of patients able to benefit from this treatment, including eligible patients in NHS Forth Valley.

Our new Stroke Improvement Plan includes a commitment to publish a plan and timeline for the further development of the thrombectomy service in the second half of this year.

The controlled target intake for funded places for Academic Year 23-24 has been maintained at 4,837 overall, comprising 4,536 nursing places and 301 midwifery places. However these figures are subject to annual review with key stakeholders as previously agreed by the then Health Secretary, Mr Humza Yousaf.

The R100 superfast broadband commitment was delivered by ensuring that everyone could access a superfast broadband connection, if they chose to, by the end of 2021 either through the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme or commercial coverage.

The R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme is a demand-led scheme, meaning it is ultimately up to tenants and owners as to whether or not they seek to secure a connection through this route.

In August 2022, a £36 million contract extension to the R100 North and South contracts was announced, which will extend the reach of those contracts to a further 2,637 rural and island premises. Whilst this extends the contract completion dates for these contracts it means that more premises in rural and island communities will be able to access full fibre, gigabit capable, broadband services.

As of 28 June 2023, a total of 3,551 vouchers have been issued through the Reaching 100% (R100) Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme.

2,985 of those vouchers have had their build confirmed at a total Scottish Government investment of £5,470,355.80.

The remaining 566 vouchers have been issued – however, as build for these has not yet been completed, we have not received invoices for them. As such, the additional voucher value of these cannot be confirmed at this time.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19190 on 27 June 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 .

My officials will meet with Police Scotland on 20 July to discuss the next steps.

The R100 programme is expected to be completed by March 2028 when the final connections in the R100 North contract are delivered.

Around 99% of the connections being delivered through the R100 contracts are full-fibre, capable of delivering speeds of 1,000 Megabits per second (Mbps) – more than 30 times faster than our original superfast commitment.