Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Heart Disease Action Plan outlines our commitment to exploring innovative models of care for cardiac diagnosis. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan Funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a second NHS board to implement aspects of the OPERA study within its local service provision.

The learning from this will be fed into ongoing work by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery to better understand the opportunities for implementation of OPERA in other NHS Boards, through pathfinder work via the new Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.

The 2022-23 draft budget provides £42.2 million to provide universal free school lunches to all children in primaries 4, 5 and special schools to 5 during school term-time. This is in addition to the £53 million per year for universal provision for pupils in primary 1 to 3 which has been in place since 2015. The 2022-23 draft budget includes a £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children (P1-P7) later in the parliamentary term. We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for the further expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year.

The draft budget also provides £21.75 million to provide support to free school meals eligible families during the school holidays.

There is no conflict of interest between existing Scottish Government Civil Servants and the specialist consultancy services procured from KPMG in a fair and open procurement exercise. The Scottish Government has a clear contract award and management processes in place to prevent conflicts of interest and to support the delivery of fit for purpose outcomes. This includes clear requirements for separation of duties between finance and procurement decisions.

Officials were informed that KPMG had withdrawn from bidding for UK government contracts on 17 December 2021.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament in 2026.

The following table shows how many school-aged children are in each local authority (as at September 2020) and how many devices have been distributed by councils using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those approaches, therefore, the table below only shows devices distributed through the funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

Where it is clinically appropriate to do so, patients of all ages will be examined with a stethoscope to listen for breathing and heart sounds. They may also have ECG electrical recordings of their heart rate, blood tests and have access to other investigations such as echocardiograms, rhythm monitors and blood pressure recordings, should these be required.

The Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) outlines our commitment to exploring innovative models of care for the diagnosis of heart disease, including a focus on improving access to echocardiography in the most appropriate setting for local needs.

Key recommendations in the Heart Valve Voice report State of the Nation included:

1) collecting standardised data for HVD.

2) focus on HVD in campaigns to raise awareness of disease in women.

3) developing an optimal patient pathway for HVD.

4) improving access to echocardiography.

1) The Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) clearly sets out our priority for the effective use of high-quality, standardised data to support clinical decision-making, understand patient outcomes and enable better service-planning. In April 2021, we commissioned Public Health Scotland to develop the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme. We have committed more than £1.5m over five years to support this transformative change in access to, and use of, data to drive improvement in cardiac services.

2) We have made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, including the launch of an information campaign on women’s heart health. Future development of work in this area will be informed by the lived experience of women with heart disease.

3) Priority 2 within the Heart Disease Action Plan makes clear our commitment to developing nationally agreed pathways of care for all cardiac conditions. This work is underway.

4) We recognise the importance of improving access to echocardiography and are taking action to address this. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a project exploring how to improve access to echocardiography.

The Scottish Government has been working in partnership with the Association of Directors of Education, COSLA and partners to establish the full delivery and financial requirements in support of the expansion of free school meals. Through this engagement, it has been confirmed that there is a requirement for capital and resource investment in order to support the expansion, including for catering and dining.

In addition to £53 million per year for universal provision in primary 1-3, the 2022-23 budget includes £42.2 million of revenue funding for the expansion of primary 4, 5 and special schools, and £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children during in the parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners in local authorities to plan for the expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year. This work will ensure the expansion can be delivered equitably across all schools, in all areas, whilst maintaining high quality lunch provision for pupils.

Since the emergence of the Omicron, the Scottish Government has undertaken a series of regular meetings with NHS Chief Executives to discuss contingency and resilience planning. These include meetings that were Chaired by the NHS Scotland Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer as well as regular meetings between health and social care officials and NHS Scotland Chief Executives. The System Response Group meetings also include representations from wider stakeholder interests and Local Government.

I have held regular update meetings to discuss System Pressures to which all Boards are invited. I have also held meetings with COSLA and officials every Monday to receive updates on the Winter Package.

Finally, I held a number of meetings with specific Local Authorities, Health Boards and HSCPs on a one to one basis where the need arose.

These meeting dates are detailed in the following table: