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Booster information was made available in the international travel section of the NHS Scotland Covid Status App on 9 December, and on paper/pdf certificates from 13 December.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04922 on
17 December 2021. 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

NHS Boards will be allocated the £30 million to support GP practices in two tranches based upon their practices’ weighted share of registered patients under the Scottish Workload Formula at the time of the allocation. The following table provides an indication of what the first NHS Board allocation will be based upon practice shares of patients in October 2021.

The number of Consultants with a specialty of Obstetrics & Gynaecology working in NHSScotland have increased by 12.8% (from 574.3 WTE as at Sept 2006 to 647.8 WTE as at Jun 2021).

The number of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Consultants working in NHSScotland can be found on the NHS Education for Scotland website on the following link: Medical and Dental | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with dystonia are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

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 dystonia, have access to a range of professionals to provide the appropriate management of their condition.

Dystonia UK, a leading charity that provides supports for people living with dystonia, is a member of the Neurological Alliance of Scotland (NAoS). The NAoS are key members of our National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions which is working to drive improvement in outcomes for people with a range of neurological conditions, including dystonia.

In 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – National Framework for Action, with a vision to ensure everyone with a neurological condition, including dystonia, can access the care and support they need to live well, on their own terms.

We are investing £4.5 million of funding to implement the 17 commitments in the framework, supporting innovative practice in neurological care for people with conditions such as dystonia. No applications have been received to date for projects in relation to the direct support and care of people affected by dystonia and we would welcome future applications.

Through Commitment 13 of the Framework, the Scottish Government will support neurological research by promoting the work of the Chief Scientist Office, third sector organisations’ research and Scottish neurological research networks; encouraging opportunities for people with neurological conditions to become involved in research trials; and highlighting the need for further qualitative research on the impact of living with a neurological condition.

The Chief Scientist Office research funding committees are open and applications on the underlying causes, diagnosis, treatment and management of dystonia are welcomed - Response Mode Funding Schemes – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

Throughout Storms Arwen and Barra the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division maintained daily contact with the power companies and close engagement continues.

It must be noted that resilience of the electricity networks is reserved and is the responsibility of the UK Government. The Scottish Government will be engaging with both the upcoming Ofgem and UK Government Storm Arwen reviews.

In addition, the Deputy First Minister requested that the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division begin work on the scope and terms of a review into the Storm Arwen response on 30 November 2021, and on 14 December 2021 he formally commissioned the Scottish Resilience Partnership to collate evidence from local resilience partnerships to inform the findings of the review.

The Scottish Government will also gather evidence from other relevant groups, for example the voluntary sector and utilities companies, including power companies.

‎This work is already well underway and we aim to publish a review paper with recommendations in mid-January.

Information on the amount of people living with dystonia in each NHS board area is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or Public Health Scotland (PHS).

The Scottish Government has submitted a request through NHS Scotland’s Scottish Primary Care Information Request (SPIRE), which holds information from GP patient records, to better understand prevalence amongst neurological conditions including dystonia. We expect this data to be collected in 2022.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has operational responsibility for our Modern Apprenticeship (MA) programme. Official MA statistics are published quarterly by SDS, including the number of starts, however a breakdown by month is not available.

The total number of MAs recruited by each occupational grouping is published at the end of each year, as recruitment of apprentices is carried out throughout the year. The MA 202-/22 Q4 (Year End) statistics are expected to be published in May 2022.

There are a large number of Small and Medium Enterprise businesses who take on smaller numbers of cohorts each year. The table below shows the top three employers who have recruited the largest number of MAs each year since 2019 and the volume of MA starts each year:

Detailed data on the use of exemptions at a UK level is held by the Home Office and we are therefore unable to publically share this for other parts of the UK. However, we are able to confirm that in Scotland in the period between 26 November - 13 December there were a total of 217 people entering managed isolation after arriving from a red list country. In that same period, 123 seafarers have come to Scotland from red list countries using the seafarer exemption. This is a disproportionate number of travellers compared to the total entering managed isolation, which they are exempt from thanks to the sectoral exemption.

We continue to review our international travel restrictions and associated exemptions and health measures and will consider appropriate changes where clinical and scientific advice allow it. With the recent removal of the countries from the red list, we expect the vast majority of seafarers to be covered under the inbound vaccinated traveller scheme for the purposes of travel to Scotland for non-work related purposes.