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The Contracts for Difference scheme is a UK Government mechanism.

Information about all Contracts for Difference strike prices is available in the public domain here: Contracts for Difference - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

The Scottish Breast Screening programme was temporarily paused between March 2020 – August 2020 in order to reduce the risk of participants becoming infected with Covid-19, to enable physical distancing, and to minimise the impact on essential NHS services as they responded to the virus. When screening resumed, a continued pause on self-referrals allowed appointments to be prioritised for those aged 50-70 years old, the recommended screening population. A phased restart of self-referrals was agreed on October 2022. Following this, women aged 71-74, and those over 75 with a history of breast cancer, have been eligible to self-refer for a screening appointment since November 2020.

Table 1 below shows the number of women who self-referred in each of the last three reporting years that run from 1 April to 31 March.

Table 1 shows the number of self-referrals from April 2020 - March 2023

The National Optimal Lung Cancer Diagnostic Pathway provides boards with best practice examples to improve lung cancer diagnostic pathway efficiency. Adoption of the optimal diagnostic pathway will take time as boards begin to redesign their services, funding has been aligned to this work to help support boards implement diagnostic pathway improvements over time. Not all patients that move through diagnostic pathways will have cancer, however data form Public Health Scotland shows that we continue to treat around 1,000 lung cancer patients in NHS Scotland on average each quarter. Data on the number of lung cancers treated in Jan - March 2023 will be published by PHS on 27 June 2023.

The Scottish Government’s Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy is being developed with an overarching aim that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death and bereavement support, based on their needs and preferences.

We will develop a strategy that reflects what matters to people experiencing serious illness or who are near the end of life. We are reviewing the information and evidence we have about people’s experiences of palliative and end of life care to inform our strategy going forward. This will include the values, preferences, and priorities of people facing additional risks and challenges, including prisoners.

As part of the development of the National Care Service (NCS), the Scottish Government is considering options to improve the ways people access social care support. This includes the processes by which their needs are assessed, their care is planned and their supports are provided. We are committed to embedding a human rights-based approach across the NCS. This means ensuring that services for accessing support planning can meet people’s wide-ranging individual access needs and that support plans are co-produced with the person seeking support, and where appropriate unpaid carers and others important to them. This will help ensure people have choice and control over their care.

The Scottish Government is also committed to improving independent advocacy services so people are supported to participate in decisions about their care. Improvements to the provision and consistency of independent advocacy services will support people who have complex needs or find the system difficult to navigate to access the social care supports they need.

The Scottish Government wants the NCS to make it easier for people to get care and support in their homes, in their communities and among their family and friends. In line with the Independent Review of Adult Social Care recommendations, we recognise that there are some very complex and specialist care and support services where it would be better to commission them once, to ensure a high quality and consistent quality of service for people, regardless of where in Scotland they live. Therefore, part of the NCS approach will see such services commissioned at a national level.

As we build the NCS, we will listen to the voices of the real experts: People who use community health and social care, including unpaid carers, and the staff who provide it, listening to their needs and acting on what they tell us. We will co-design the detail through our continued engagement with people with experience of using these services, and with partners and stakeholders who deliver community health and social care services to develop the final scope of a National Care Service for everyone.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting people with profound and complex care needs right now. In 2021, £20m of funding under the Scottish Government’s ‘Community Living Change Fund’ was distributed to Integration Authorities across Scotland to help in the design of community-based solutions that negate or limit inappropriate out-of-area placements for adults with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

The Green Heat Finance Taskforce last met on 17 May 2023 and will next meet on 5 July 2023. Notes of Taskforce meetings are published on the Scottish Government’s website.

Our Respiratory Care Action Plan published in March 2021, contains a key commitment to ensure that people living with respiratory conditions have access to the tools, resources, and information that they need to support them to self-manage their own condition.

Work is already established across Scotland to support the remote monitoring of conditions from home through our investment in the Connect Me programme. National pathways for conditions such as asthma and pulmonary disease are in development to be made available for use by Health Boards which will support early intervention and prevention of hospital admissions. All Health Boards in Scotland are expected to be working with the national programme by September 2023 and have been supported with provision of pulse-oximeters where requested.

We continue to assess the evidence for COPD developments which currently demonstrate sufficient potential to continue researching but insufficient evidence to justify a national roll out. While early indications are positive, evidence to support its potential benefits and applicability for national support are still to be demonstrated.

We will publish our Stroke Improvement Plan on 14 June 2023. Funding to drive forward the actions in the plan has been confirmed for 2023-24 with some of the implementation work already underway.

Delivery of the actions contained within this plan will enable us to minimise preventable strokes and to ensure timely and equitable access to life-saving treatment and a person centred, holistic approach to care that supports rehabilitation.

NatureScot is charged with keeping the Access Code under constant review and is working with the National Access Forum to address access issues that do arise though providing new guidance, resources and advice.

The Access Code succeeds in fulfilling its statutory purpose of setting out the rights and responsibilities of land managers and those exercising access rights. The Access Code states for those exercising access rights, “Wherever possible, use a stove rather than light an open fire. If you do wish to light an open fire, keep it small, under control and supervised – fires that get out of control can cause major damage, for which you might be liable. Never light an open fire during prolonged dry periods or in areas such as forests, woods, farmland, or on peaty ground or near to buildings or in cultural heritage sites where damage can be easily caused. Heed all advice at times of high risk. Remove all traces of an open fire before you leave.”

It states for land managers, “At times of drought, work with your local authority (fire services) to inform people of the high risks involved.”

We are content that addressing challenges such as wildfires does not require modification of the Access Code, but better adherence to the Access Code including education and enforcement where necessary.

This spring has seen NatureScot’s strongest Access Code social media campaign to date, with 1.7 million social media impressions, of which 35,000 were specifically on fire messaging during the last four weeks. There have also been 128,000 plays of wild camping guidance videos.

SEPA will ensure that the Official Statistics for household waste which report against the national household waste recycling targets, will include DRS materials once it is implemented.

The DRS scheme has been delayed to October 2025 at the earliest. We are in the process of reviewing the existing guidance with a view to updating it in due course.