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The Scottish Government expects health care professionals to deliver high quality person-centred care in line with best practice guidance. The NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guideline on management of rheumatoid arthritis in adults (NG100) is available on its website: www.nice.org.uk. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline on management of psoriatic arthritis in adults (SIGN 121) is available on its website: www.sign.ac.uk.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with long term conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis are able to access the best possible care and support.

The Scottish Government is working to ensure an overarching approach for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) is in place in order to facilitate a ‘once for Scotland’ approach, where possible. We recognise that there are wide-ranging implications and challenges for the managed introduction of these personalised medicines, and are committed to adopting a co-ordinated approach where practical. We are working across Government to develop our understanding of the future direction for this area of medicines policy, including associated genomic testing and service planning implications for the NHS.

In Scotland, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) appraises the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly-licensed medicines. Following receipt of a submission from the manufacturer, the SMC carries out an appraisal of the medicine and then determines whether it should be accepted for routine use within the NHS in Scotland. The SMC appraisal is undertaken independently of Scottish Ministers and is based on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the medicine at a population level. Following the appraisal process, the SMC publishes advice for NHS Scotland Health Boards to consider. The decision to prescribe a medicine for a patient, and which medicine to prescribe, is entirely for the clinician in charge of a patient’s care, having taken into account the patient’s clinical condition and any relevant clinical guidance.

The information requested is not held centrally and is a matter for NHS Boards locally.

As set out in my response to S6W-14760 on 24 February 2023, the Scottish Government is examining the risk assessment conclusion in detail, given the serious impact of HPAI (High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza) on wild and kept birds. We will monitor risk levels and carefully consider our response over coming months.

When gamebirds are kept in captivity, they are subject to the same legislation as any other bird species in that there is a legal requirement to report suspicion of notifiable avian disease. The release of game birds is also prohibited within an avian influenza protection zone and surveillance zone.

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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14934 on 8 March 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/questions-and-answers .

The Forestry and Land Scotland contract for the sale of venison from Scotland’s national forests and land was awarded by a competitive tender following substantial stakeholder engagement / market research.

The stakeholder engagement / market research considered all aspects of the venison market both in Scotland and the UK and involved the following (amongst others):

• Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG)
• Lowland Deer Network
• Scottish Quality Wild Venison
• Scottish Venison Association
• Approved Game Meat Handling Establishments (AGHE) processing venison
• Ardgay Game
• Highland Game
• Simpson Game
• Lincolnshire Game
• Hubertus Game
• Ben Rigby

Following the stakeholder engagement / market research a tender strategy was developed, which detailed how the contract would be structured to maximise the benefits in line with the Scottish Venison Strategy.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office has not funded any research that is directly related to postural tachycardia from the years 2007 to today.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office operates open competitive funding schemes for applied health research projects and fellowships across the wide range of NHS and health challenges in Scotland. These schemes are open to consideration of applications addressing research directed into postural tachycardia syndrome. Applications to these schemes are assessed through independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees.

We remain committed to significantly increasing the rate of restoration as one of the transformative changes needed to meet the targets set out in the Climate Change Plan. In 2020 we set out ambitious plans to invest more than £250 million over ten years to restore at least 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030.

Against this target, we have delivered around 64,000 hectares to date at an annual rate of around 6,000 hectares in recent years. This falls short of our annual target of 20,000 hectares. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that peatland restoration is a sector in its infancy and has not yet developed significant supply capacity. Contractor capacity is limited, as is the field of technical advisers and agents to support land owners and managers through restoration projects.

Our Peatland Programme is working to address the many barriers to transforming restoration rates in order to meet both current and future targets. We are taking actions to boost supply and demand, to create new levers and incentives through agriculture and land reform, and to increase private investment.

The UK government announcement related to the proposed scheme in England. Wales has also confirmed their scheme will include glass.

The Scottish Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) business case suggests that including glass will save over 1.2 megatonnes CO2 equivalent over 25 years, and will significantly increase the quantity and quality of glass recyclate. We will continue to work closely with the UK and devolved governments to maximise interoperability of the schemes when they go live, and hope that the UK government will, over time, follow the other UK nations and reconsider its decision to exclude glass.