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The cost of grid infrastructure enhancements is an area of policy reserved to the UK Government. The recent Ofgem reform will mean that from the 1st of April 2023 generation and storage will pay less upfront costs and some of these costs will be socialised across the relevant network.

The Scottish Government wishes to see network costs reformed to support greater uptake of renewables generation and storage. However, this cannot done at the expense of financially vulnerable and fuel poor.

Those most vulnerable are already experiencing difficulties due to the cost of living energy crisis and care needs to be taken to ensure that those least able to pay do not end up paying the costs for those who can afford domestic generation and storage.

The Scottish Government will continue to make the case for comprehensive reform of network charges that supports delivery of net zero at the lowest cost to the consumer.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) provides funding to support and facilitate high quality applied research across a wide health and care remit

CSO Approach to Funding – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

This includes funding in support of research in areas of public health, or health and care where delivery may be outside of clinical settings

CSO's annual budget from 2012-13 to 2022-23 is provided below:

2012-13 £67.9 million

2013-14 £68.3 million

2014-15 £68.5 million

2015-16 £66.8 million

2016-17 £64.8 million

2017-18 £64.4 million

2018-19 £67.2 million

2019-20 £69.9 million

2020-21 £69.9 million

2021-22 £75.4 million (includes £3.5 million non-recurring COVID-19 funding)

2022-23 £78.4 million

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend eligibility for outpatient treatment.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18 who are being treated in Scotland.

We recognise it is not possible to deliver all services and treatments in all locations. That is why, where patients are required to travel we already expect boards to take a patient centred approach and to have in place arrangements to allow and support people to receive treatment elsewhere. In addition, financial support for travel is available for patients and authorised escorts attending hospital appointments, in line with eligibility criteria and medical requirements.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend the age range.

Those aged between 18 – 25 years old continue to have access to the Patient Travel Expenses Scheme or the Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme, both of which provide eligible claimants with support to meet travel costs associated with outpatient appointments.

In its first year of operation, a total of £2,056,179 was paid out to Scotland’s 14 territorial Health Boards for the Young Patients Family Fund in 2021-22.

Scottish Government does not yet hold data on how many individual people have benefitted so far.

These are the directly funded clinical academic fellowships (CAF) and Senior Clinical Academic Fellowships (SCAF) awarded by the Chief Scientist Office since 2012.

We are committed to ensuring that alcohol treatment in Scotland is consistent and of high quality. We are supporting the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which has been leading on the development of new UK-wide clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment.

We expect the draft guidance to be published for consultation this year. We will work with our partners to ensure that it is suitable for Scotland and how the guidance could be implemented effectively and consistently across the country.

The forthcoming UK clinical guidelines will act as a platform to develop alcohol specific treatment targets. The intention would be that these would launch in 2024.

Whilst there is no legal definition of elder abuse, the World Health Organisation has defined it as ‘a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person' ( Elder abuse (who.int) ). They note this can cover several types of violence, including but not limited to physical, sexual, psychological and financial abuse or neglect.

In general the Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on levels of elder abuse, as the Official Statistics on police recorded crime and criminal proceedings do not include details on whether the victim was an older person, or their relationship to the perpetrator. Police Scotland are in the process of introducing a new system to record crime, which once fully operational may allow for more detailed analysis within Scotland’s recorded crime statistics (including victim age for each type of crime committed). Going forward, statisticians will keep users of crime statistics informed of developments, as the new system rolls out during 2022 and 2023.

Some information on the age of victims and their relationship to perpetrators is available from topic based Official Statistics, including for example police recorded Domestic Abuse and Homicide. In 2020-21, victims of domestic abuse aged 60 and over had a rate of 12 incidents per 10,000 population (compared to 119 incidents for all ages). This has remained broadly stable over the past five years. Between 2016-17 and 2020-21 there were 36 victims of homicide in Scotland aged 60 or over. Of these, over two-thirds (69% or 25 victims) were known to the perpetrator (including partners or ex-partners, relatives and acquaintances). Furthermore the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) can provide estimates of some measures by age, however this only covers adults living in private households and excludes other settings such as care homes. In 2019/20, 6.9% of those aged 60 and over experienced crime in Scotland (including those not reported to the police), compared to 11.9% for all aged 16 plus. The victimisation rate for those aged over 60 has shown no change since 2014/15.

Some data is also available from the Care Inspectorate, which operates a complaints procedure for registered care services. For example in 2019/20 there were 35 upheld complaints about protection of people in care homes for older people. Further information on this process is provided in Care Inspectorate reports Complaints Annual Report 2019-20 final 12012021 (1).pdf (careinspectorate.com) and their published board papers (June 2021) Board_1706202_Final_Published.pdf (careinspectorate.com) .

While the Scottish Government’s role is to set the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, NHS Boards and healthcare professionals locally have responsibility for both service delivery and people’s care. NHS Boards are expected to ensure that patients, including those who require care and support for ME/CFS, have access to a range of professionals to provide the appropriate management of their condition.

We recently commissioned an independent organisation to engage with third sector and clinical stakeholders and people with lived experience, to discuss how we move forward in implementing the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) guideline recommendations on ME/CFS in Scotland, and in identifying priorities for service improvement. We are currently preparing to publish the final stakeholder consultation report and are considering its findings.

I was pleased to meet with #MEAction Scotland representatives in March 2022, to hear their views on improving the access to care and support for people affected by the condition.