Seòmar agus comataidhean

In March 2022 we published, in partnership with CoSLA, the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care. The Strategy outlines our shared vision for the workforce, a sustainable, skilled workforce with attractive career choices where all are respected and valued for the work they do. This vision supports our tripartite ambition of Recovery, Growth and Transformation.

As part of this additional training places have been created in Gastroenterology through the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group. One extra post was created in 2014, with a further 10 having been established in 2022. All additional places have filled successfully.

The Scottish Government is also investing £11 million over the next 5 years in new national and international recruitment campaigns. As part of that investment, a new national Centre for Workforce Supply has been established which will support the development and implementation of resource strategies and services across the system.

To ensure all Health Boards have sufficient capacity, planning guidance has been issued to support the production of new Three Year Workforce Plans, supported by local systems’ workforce data.

As part of this all Health Boards must consider local population health needs and projected service demand, using that information to assess current staffing capacity and any relevant staffing gaps in all specialties including gastroenterology.

At national level, we will use this intelligence to inform new staffing projections for health and social care, which will be published in the coming year as part of the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.

If a patient chooses to purchase a test from a private provider, we recommend that they discuss the test’s suitability and their approach with their clinician. It would ultimately be the decision of their clinician whether to accept the result, based on the available evidence and their knowledge of the patient’s clinical history.

Specifically in relation to COVID-19 testing, as set out in our Test and Protect transition plan for any purpose which COVID-19 testing continues to be advised we will ensure that these tests remain available free of charge. This includes testing that is advised as part of a patient’s clinical care and to protect higher risk settings such as hospitals.

The #LiveableNHSBursary campaign is focused on the situation faced by latter years medical students studying in England which is something we are unable to comment on. Scottish domiciled medical students are eligible for the standard student support package which is comprised of tuition fees and living cost support throughout all 5 or 6 years of their medical degree. Furthermore in February 2002 a £350 loan uplift for 2022-23 for higher education students was announced. This means that the most disadvantaged students can access £8,100 per year through bursary and loan and the Scottish Government remains committed that the total student support package reaches the equivalent of the Living Wage over the next three years.

In Scotland medical ACT is currently used to fund Travel and Subsistence for students in all regions and this is monitored in light of the changing economic climate and impact of locus of student placements in remote/rural settings.

NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) publish spending in relation to PPE and Covid-19 testing kits as part of their annual accounts, which are published on their website.

NSS’ 2021-22 annual accounts, once finalised, will be published in line with their financial reporting timetable.

Detail not provided within their accounts would require to be requested from NSS.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of day services to both those who use them and to their families and carers. Revised guidance for buildings-based day services was published on 26 May 2022 which says that such services should return to pre-pandemic capacity wherever possible, while operating safely in line with COVID-19 guidance.

We are investing now in additional support for breaks. We have allocated an extra £5 million for short breaks in the 2022-23 budget, on top of the annual £3 million voluntary sector Short Breaks Fund. We have already distributed £3.5 million of this funding to the Time to Live delivery partners to expand short break support for carers. This is in addition to a further £20.4 million in the 2022-23 local government settlement for Carers Act implementation. We are also legislating through the National Care Service Bill to establish a right to breaks from caring.

The UK Government's response to the Ukraine crisis is predicated upon complex, bureaucratic, short-term visas, not humanitarian need. Inordinate time and effort has been required to patch this broken system. Scotland's super-sponsor scheme seeks to do just this. But there remain serious gaps in the UK's schemes even in the short term – in particular routes for vulnerable unaccompanied children and others left out of the existing schemes.

In my regular correspondence, I have pressed the UK government to put people before process. I have been clear that, while many displaced people will want to return to Ukraine when it is safe to do so, the UK should offer sanctuary for as long as is required, and permanently if necessary.

The Scottish Government is currently engaging with stakeholders taking into consideration their ambitions and priorities to develop an International Education Strategy which works for Scotland.

The information on properties purchased through the Scottish Government shared equity schemes (Help to Buy (Scotland), the Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme, New Supply Shared Equity (NSSE) and the First Home Fund is not recorded by Scottish Parliamentary region. It is recorded by Local Authority area and information on the numbers of properties purchased in each year of each scheme can be found in the published figures at the following links.

Help to Buy (Scotland) under Monitoring Information Report

https://www.gov.scot/policies/homeowners/help-to-buy/

Open Market Shared Equity and New Supply Shared Equity under Affordable Housing Supply Programme annual out-turn reports and related data

https://www.gov.scot/policies/more-homes/affordable-housing-supply/

First Home Fund

https://www.gov.scot/publications/first-home-fund-spend-and-units-monitoring-information-report-december-2019-to-march-2021/

Agricultural workers from Ukraine are critical in the production of soft fruit and vegetables in Scotland. The seasonal worker Labour Providers have a contractual and data sharing agreement with the Home Office. Numbers relating to Seasonal Workers are only shared by labour providers with the Home Office as part of this. Following engagement with officials in the Home Office and DEFRA our best assessment of the information available is that there are approximately 500 Ukrainian Nationals on seasonal work visas currently residing in Scotland.

This data is taken from UK Finance statistics, and relates to mortgage advances for home purchase extended by lenders to first-time buyers in Scotland. Over the 12 months to March 2022, there were 34,310 mortgage advances for home purchase extended to first-time buyers in Scotland, as compared with 30,360 in the preceding 12 months, a rise of 13%.