Chamber and committees

Information on the number of homeless people who have received a GP appointment is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as GP practices are responsible for their own patient appointment and consultation arrangements.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained directly from Health Boards.

This government has seen an 87.7% increase in consultant oncologists and we’ve increased consultant radiologists by 57.4% (September 2006 – June 2021). We recognise the immense pressure our NHS workforce has been under in response to the pandemic and we are working to provide a sustainable workforce. The National Cancer Plan is backed by £114.5 million and has the potential to provide significant financial support to address cancer workforce shortages.

As part of the work of the National Cancer Recovery Group (NCRG), we are currently carrying out an exercise to identify workforce requirements to help inform wider planning discussions. This will look at roles specifically related to cancer.

Our Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme is aimed at increasing early diagnosis rates of Scotland’s most common cancers while reducing health inequalities. DCE launched a new overarching campaign – Survivors - in September 2018 to reduce fear of cancer and empower people to act early if they notice any possible signs of cancer.

An interactive symptom-checker tool has been developed on DCE’s website (getcheckedearly.org) to help raise awareness of key symptoms, including those associated with leukaemia (fatigue, weight loss, recurrent infections). The NHS Recovery Plan, published 25 August 2021, commits a further £20 million investment to the DCE Programme, which will include additional public awareness campaigns.

A clinical refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer ( Scottish referral guidelines for suspected cancer - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) )has been completed, with revised guidelines 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. The Scottish Government continues to support Cancer Research UK’s Clinical Engagement Team to raise awareness of symptoms and best referral practice for all cancer types across NHS Scotland.

Scotland’s first three Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (ECDC) are live, providing primary care with a new referral pathway for patients with non-specific symptoms i.e. fatigue, nausea, weight loss – this can often include patients with Haematological cancers.

The COVID pandemic has inevitably affected A&E attendance and the pressure is being felt across the UK. While Scotland continues to have the best performing A&E in the whole of the UK, our NHS staff are facing unprecedented pressures as they work tirelessly and consistently to respond to the pandemic whilst continuing to provide vital treatment and optimal patient care.

Demand on NHS Highland services has been, and continues to be challenged. This is largely due to limited bed capacity due to staffing pressures, and an increase in attendances to A&E by those who are much sicker and require higher levels of care.

We are in daily contact with NHS Highland and continue to support improvement work within the Board and the Health & Social Care Partnerships to minimise delays for patients no matter where they are in the system. We also invested an additional £12 million in the summer to support improvements, NHS Highland has used its allocation to increase capacity in community hospitals.

Additionally, to help alleviate pressures across the whole system we announced a substantial new investment of over £300 million in hospital and community care to support the NHS and social care system over winter. The new funding will support a range of measures to maximise capacity in hospitals and primary care, reduce delayed discharges, improve pay for social care staff, and ensure those in the community who need support receive effective and responsive care, helping to improve waiting times for people attending A&E.

All pandemic PPE procurement undertaken by public sector organisations has been conducted in line with the relevant public procurement legislation and policy. In addition, direct awards have taken place using procedures outlined in Regulation 33 within the Public Contract (Scotland) Regulation 2015.

Information on contracts awarded by the Scottish Government for PPE was included in the answers to PQs S6W-02211 and S6W-02212 on 28 September 2021.

Information on contracts let by other national public sector organisations is a matter for those bodies.

The Procurement (Scotland) Regulations require all public bodies to publish an award notice for all regulated procurements no later than thirty days after the award of the contract. These can be found on the Public Contracts Scotland website: www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk

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

To date 791 paramedics have been recruited. Another 126 will come on stream in 4 months with more than 100 joining in early 2022.

Covid-19 has resulted in some delays to recruitment which will push the achievement of this commitment out to 2022 but revised plans indicate a high level of confidence in achieving this.

With increasing A&E attendances, demand and capacity concerns and the impact of Covid-19, it is important that we ensure the NHS is equipped with the resources it needs to meet the challenges of the future. By investing in a professional, highly skilled ambulance workforce, this will help deliver a better service for patients all across Scotland.

We are working closely across the four nations and international partners on restarting international travel safely. Our discussions are still ongoing with the UK Government and international partners on exemptions for people who cannot receive COVID-19 vaccinations. In the meantime, people intending to travel should check that vaccination status is a requirement of the country they are visiting on the GOV.UK foreign travel advice pages, as PCR testing is also widely accepted.

The number of people for whom vaccination cannot be safely completed with the right support will be very small. Reasons for exemptions would be medical contraindications that might include severe anaphylactic reaction across the range of vaccines and those receiving end of life care. We would encourage people to take a vaccine where they can do so safely and they can contact our national helpline on 0808 196 8565 for support in arranging this.

The requested information is not centrally held. NHS Education for Scotland publish annual data on joiners/leavers, but this information is not available by reason or destination.

Information on joiners/leavers by staff group for each financial year can be found on the following link:

https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/media/tnvdmmwd/turnover_m2021_updated.xlsx

Fully vaccinated means that it has been at least 14 days since your final dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine. To count as fully vaccinated, you must have been vaccinated in either:

1. The UK, including part of a UK vaccine rollout overseas - with an NHS approved vaccine.

2. An EU member state – with a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

3. Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City - with a vaccine approved by the EMA or the Swiss vaccination programme

4. The USA – with a vaccine authorised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

If you’ve not been vaccinated in one of these countries, with an approved vaccine, you should follow the rules for someone who has not been fully vaccinated.

If you live in Scotland and you've received your first, second or both vaccine doses outside of Scotland but in the Common Travel Area, you can get your coronavirus vaccination status via the normal process as records should transfer over to the Scottish system: Get a record of your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination status | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot) . If your data is not showing you should phone the COVID-19 Vaccination Status Helpline on 0808 196 8565.

If you have moved to/from Scotland during the vaccine process and only had 1 dose here it is possible to request proof of the single dose you received in Scotland through the normal process. You will need to request proof of your other dose from the country you received it in.

If you received both doses in another Common Travel Area country, you'll need to request your vaccination status from that country.

If you received 1 or both doses in an international country you will need to request proof of those vaccines from that country.