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We are developing a new 10 year cancer strategy that will launch in Spring 2023 and takes a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care. We are considering the specific needs of blood cancer patients.

Programme for Government 2021/22 committed an additional £20 million investment, over the life of this Parliament, for the Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) Programme to improve early detection rates. So far investment has been made into the development of a new behaviour change campaign to reduce fear of cancer, launched 6 March 2023.

Through the Programme, there’s a firm focus on lung cancer which remains a national priority. This funding has included supporting implementation of Scotland’s optimal lung cancer diagnostic pathway (published December 2022); exploring the role of artificial intelligence in expediting those identified as higher risk; continuation of the University of Edinburgh’s LUNGSCOT study; and establishing a National Bronchoscopy & EBUS Training Programme for NHS Scotland.

A new earlier diagnosis vision is expected to launch in Spring 2023, as part of Scotland’s new cancer strategy – this will be supported by a 3 year action plan, the delivery of which will be supported by this Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) Programme investment.

The review undertaken by Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie was conducted in his capacity as an independent reviewer. The programme of engagement resulted in around 70 meetings with the Board and other key stakeholders. Due to the number of meetings, confidentiality and level of engagement no formal agendas or minutes were taken however progress was captured and fed back to NHS Highland and the relevant community groups. It would not be the place of the Scottish Government to publish these documents due to the nature of the review. However, Professor Ritchie and officials visited Portree again in May and November 2022. Minutes of these meetings are available via the Implementation Group and NHS Highland.

Guidance is provided by the Scottish Government to Health Boards which is publicly available on the following website SHOW - SGHSC - Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates including guidance on matters in relation to attraction and retention of medical and non-medical staff. The Centre for Workforce Supply, hosted by NHS Education for Scotland works with Health Boards to support the building of workforce capacity.

Details of funding for the Redesign of Urgent Care is provided in the following table.

During 2022-23 we invested £50 million in the Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative Programme which aims to support NHS Boards to improve hospital processes and enhance out-of-hospital care. This approach gives Health Boards the flexibility to focus on their key priorities with Redesign of Urgent Care one of the fixed anchor points Boards need to sustain.

Breakdown of funding awarded for RUC since 2020-21:

There has been a significant, long term move towards procedures carried out as day-cases and reducing lengths of stay, to the benefit of patients meaning less time spent in hospital.

This includes significant progress in the delivery of same-day discharge arthroplasty, allowing patients to be safely discharged home on the same day as their procedure, increasing capacity within Orthopaedics.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery will enable us to see 140,000 new outpatients each year, an increase of 55,500 procedures per year by the end of this plan - a 20% increase over pre-Covid levels – and Specialty Delivery Groups have been set up to drive opportunities across regions on same day surgery, for example in gynaecology pathways.

Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) are being developed by the Scottish Government in line with the Fisheries Act 2020, and will be published by the end of 2024, as set out in the Joint Fisheries Statement. The 21 Scottish-led FMPs will reflect the urgency of climate mitigation by outlining the policies the Scottish Government is developing to ensure sustainable fisheries. These policies include measures to reduce bycatch and entanglement, such as the Future Catching Policy.

FMPs will also be an important tool for climate adaptation, because FMPs will state the maximum sustainable yield for a stock, where this is available, and include an overview of the health and location of a stock over time. FMPs will be revisited at least every six years, which will support management of our fish stocks as the marine environment changes.

The development of the FMPs will include discussions with our core stakeholder Fisheries Management and Conservation (FMAC) Group. We will also be addressing climate change from a fisheries perspective through the FMAC Climate Change Subgroup and we aim to develop a work programme in partnership with concrete actions for the industry, the Scottish Government, academia and others to take in order to mitigate the impacts fishing has on climate change .

The next statistical release on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland will be published by the Scottish Government on 23 March 2023.

Additionally, the Scottish Government publish a calendar of forthcoming statistical releases. The calendar can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/official-statistics-forthcoming-publications/

This question relates to functions that are the responsibility of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) which the Office of the Public Guardian for Scotland (OPG) is a part of. The SCTS is an independent body corporate and as such it is not directly answerable to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government has regular engagement with SCTS where a range of issues are discussed. The SCTS capital budget allocation will increase from £8 million in 2022-23 to £12.7m in 2023-24. This will include funding to replace the OPG IT system, which will help improve processing times for PoA applications.

Since 2015, 663,670 households have accessed the Home Energy Scotland advice service in the following local authority areas: