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The Scottish Government is not considering the introduction of powers for Health Boards to take over community pharmacies that are struggling to meet required standards.

Any challenges faced by community pharmacy contractors in delivering existing pharmaceutical care services should be discussed with the Health Boards who will be able to consider actions to support service provision.

All payments as part of the national contractual framework are published annually. The latest iteration can be found at SHOW - Scotlands Health On the Web - Publications, including payments for non-activity based services delivered as part of the Pharmaceutical Services Remuneration Global Sum.

Health Boards can recover remuneration in line with the measures available as set out in the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the National Health Service (Discipline Committees) (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any practice by pharmacy chains offering work to Scottish locum pharmacists in other parts of the UK while agreeing to closures across the Scottish pharmacy network.

Neither the Scottish Government or Health Boards are responsible for the terms or contractual arrangements put in place between pharmacy businesses and those who provide a pharmacy locum service.

The Scottish Government does not have any records of meetings, correspondence and other communications between Scottish Ministers, officials and any members of the judiciary, including the current Lord President, in respect of the contents of a note reportedly submitted to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry by John Halley on 1 April 2019.

As investigations into this matter are ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment.

Over the past decade the Scottish Government has invested more than £55 million in electrical vehicle charging. ChargePlace Scotland (CPS), a publicly available network, now consists of over 2,300 charge points across Scotland.

Scotland benefits from the most public charging points outside of London, and the most rapid charge points anywhere in the UK. We now want to see greater private sector investment and involvement in line with our vision for Scotland’s public EV charging network – delivering more infrastructure faster and in way that is more accessible than ever before.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how much each Local Authority has spent on installing electric vehicle charging points, we can only advise how much funding they have received from us.

In the last three years, we have invested over £30m across all local authorities, as shown in the table. Investment has been awarded through a range of initiatives, including innovation projects such as the £5.3m Project Pace in North and South Lanarkshire.

I announced on 4 October that the Scottish Government would be devolving powers to NHS Boards to utilise local flexibilities within NHS Pension arrangements, and offer ‘pension recycling’. This means NHS Boards will have the ability to assist staff affected by annual and lifetime allowance pension taxation issues. This action is intended to support the retention of staff and support service delivery as we approach winter.

Wider issues relating to pensions are a reserved matter and the power to fully resolve deficiencies with the current system are a matter for the UK Government.

As set out in the Women’s Health Plan, we are developing a menopause/menstrual health policy for NHS Scotland, which can then be promoted across the public, private and third sectors.

Work is underway, with the University of Glasgow to establish an evidence base for the new policy through a survey which will ask staff about their experiences of menstrual health and menopause at work. A series of focus groups will also take place with NHSScotland staff in early 2023.

The findings will be used to develop the policy in partnership with NHSScotland employers, trade unions and an expert working group.'

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the inspection of flood defences. Local authorities, or other relevant asset owners, are responsible for the maintenance and inspection of flood defences.

The results of the 2021 Scottish Health Survey have been pre-announced for publication on 8 November 2022.