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NHS Scotland’s staffing levels are at a record high, following nine years of consecutive growth. This includes record numbers of staff within the nursing and midwifery job family.

Creating new vacancies is an essential part of workforce expansion and are to be expected as we work to rapidly grow our nursing and midwifery workforce. The nursing and midwifery establishment has increased by 7.6% in the last year, or by 4,924.6 whole time equivalent posts. 77% of the nursing and midwifery vacancies reported at September 2021 have been recorded in the last three months, reflecting the extensive range of new posts being created.

We have announced a record £300 million of investment to support Health Boards and their staff over the coming months, as well as over £1 billion of funding through the NHS Recovery Plan. Through these investments, £4.5m of funding is being made available to Health Boards to attract registered nurses from outside Scotland. This is supplemented by an additional £1m to enhance Boards’ capacity for international recruitment, and £1m of recurring funding to fund International Recruitment Lead posts in Boards. We are also investing £11 million over the next 5 years in new recruitment activity and through the recent launch of the National Centre for Workforce Supply, which will coordinate national and international recruitment campaigns and support Health Board recruitment teams.

We have also worked with Boards to take forward a nationally coordinated recruitment campaign for midwives, and will undertake a focused national marketing campaign for the recruitment of Band 5 Nurses early in the new year.

We continue to invest in the domestic supply of nurses and midwives through the long-term growth of funded education programmes. Student nurses and midwives entering funded degree programmes will increase in 2022-23 to a total recommended intake of 4,837. This will be the 10th successive intake, doubling the number of students in the last decade.

A clinical refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer has been completed with revised guidance published in January 2019. The Guidelines support primary care clinicians in ensuring those with symptoms suspicious of cancer are put on the right pathway at the right time, including possible skin cancers.

In December 2021, the Scottish Government published a refreshed Framework for Effective Cancer Management. This Framework provides NHS Cancer Teams with the tools to effectively manage USC patients from the point of referral to first treatment to improve patient experience and cancer waiting times. Tailored support will be provided to all NHS Boards to ensure the eight key elements are embedded, where relevant, across cancer pathways and specialties, including dermatology.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) is working with a number of Health Boards to implement the Digital Dermatology app, which allows patients to interact with a clinician at a time convenient to them, without having to attend hospital. This will support dermatology teams in conducting more virtual appointments. CfSD also supports a Dermatology Pathways app and website which provides clinically validated pathway information to GPs and other health professionals for many of the most common skin conditions, with the aim of supporting access for patients who most need treatment in the most appropriate care setting. As part of this, CfSD is working with the British Association of Dermatologists to increase the number of pathways covered by this approach.

The most recently published ten year percentage change tables show some upward incidence trends and downward mortality trends. This reflects improved survival.

We are committed to finding cancer early when the chance of survival and even cure is higher – this is reflected in our £44 million Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme. Melanoma was added to the Programme in 2016 following a robust options appraisal exercise (this included reviewing a wealth of data from incidence and survival to mortality and staging).

Since then, over £400,000 has been invested across NHS Scotland to support skin cancer CNS workforce, enhance image capturing and sharing, provision of equipment for GPs/ANPs i.e. dermoscopes and the development and delivery of lesion training programmes.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes quarterly statistics relating to the waits patients experience for new outpatient appointments and inpatient or day case admission at specialty and health board level using the links below.

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/healthcare-resources/waiting-times/

The latest statistics were published on 30 th November 2021 and the following tables will be of interest.

New outpatient appointments (tab: 1.4 Table):

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/10563/newop_nov21.xlsx

Inpatient or day case admission (tab: 2.4 Table):

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/10487/ipdc_nov21.xlsx

The statistics published in the tables above include additions to the waiting list and not referrals as the national data captures only those referrals that lead to a patient being added to the waiting list for an appointment or admission.

The NHS Centre for Integrative Care (CIC) is a facility that all NHS Boards across Scotland have the option of referring patients to for services not available locally.

The Scottish Government is providing £12.4 billion for frontline NHS boards, which is a £327 million (3.2%) increase. This is the first step to ensuring that frontline funding - which directly supports patient services - increases by at least £2.5 billion by 2026-27.

Over 50% of frontline spend will go towards community health services, delivering on our commitment to increase primary care funding by 25% over this Parliament, providing more care for people in a place and way that meets their needs.

The Scottish Government has no plans to make changes to rights of appeal in the planning system.

A number of amendments that sought to introduce a third party right of appeal were considered, and rejected, by the Scottish Parliament during consideration of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019.

It is for individual NHS Boards to decide which services they make available based on national and local priorities and the needs of their resident populations.

COVID vaccines are procured by the UK Government on a four nations basis, and the cancellation of the contract with Valneva is a matter for the UK Government. Valneva is a valued contributor to our life sciences sector and the Livingston facility is an important asset, developing vaccines for the treatment of many infectious diseases and supporting high quality jobs. This includes their COVID-19 vaccine, and I welcome the positive results Valneva has reported from clinical trials. I met with Valneva last week to hear more about their COVID-19 vaccine and the impressive work underway at their Livingston facility. Ministers and Scottish Enterprise are in advanced discussions with the company to agree a package of support which would underpin the company’s operations in Scotland.

The Scottish Government will continue to be guided by the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations in deploying vaccines in the face of Omicron. In line with the JCVI’s advice, the best defence against the virus is for everyone who is eligible for a booster to come forward now, alongside following the Scottish Government’s guidance on testing, face coverings and restrictions.

The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy sets out our intention to reform Energy Performance Certificates to ensure they are a suitable basis for future Energy Efficiency Regulations. In Summer 2021 we consulted on the first step of our proposed EPC reforms which focused on removing the cost element and instead using energy consumption as the headline metric. We are currently analysing feedback from this consultation and will consult on wider proposals for Energy Efficiency Regulations in Summer 2022. We are also considering what other changes are needed to EPCs to provide a robust basis for Energy Efficiency Regulations, and whether any changes are required to the 2008 regulations that established EPCs.

The pharmacy profession and the provision of pharmaceutical services are highly regulated, overseen by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC). The GPhC's role includes upholding health and safety standards for the pharmacy workforce, as well as for patients.

The Scottish Government regularly meets with Community Pharmacy Scotland, the representative body for pharmacy owners, to discuss a range of topics including workforce issues, including health and wellbeing. This year the Scottish Government has made £12m available to support the wellbeing of the pharmacist workforce. This includes £8m from the NHS Recovery Plan to provide ongoing wellbeing support for the workforce – alongside an extra £4m to provide further support to address winter pressures.

The funding supports the 24/7 National Wellbeing Helpline, our National Wellbeing Hub, Coaching for Wellbeing and the Workforce Specialist Service, alongside tailored psychological interventions for staff, providing individualised wellbeing support focusing on people’s physical and emotional needs.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland in a joint letter (8 December 2021) with the leaders from the pharmacy sector, including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (Scotland), has written to all pharmacy teams outlining the range of wellbeing support available to pharmacy teams and encouraging them to access these resources for support when needed.