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The Scottish Government collects and publishes annual information on Common assault of emergency workers within two National Statistics bulletins.

The first is Recorded Crime in Scotland [1] . Table A8 of the Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2020-21 National Statistics shows the latest 10 year trend in Common assault of an emergency worker offences for Scotland and this information can also be broken down by local authority area. It should be noted that these figures will not include certain attacks or assaults on emergency workers (for example should an emergency worker be assaulted and sustain a serious assault level injury, this would be recorded as a serious assault). From previous research into common assault and further information published by Police Scotland, the vast majority of police recorded offences of Common assault of an emergency worker relate to police officers.

The second is Criminal Proceedings in Scotland [2] . The number of people proceeded against and people convicted in Scottish courts for assaults against emergency workers under various criminal offences are published in additional tables [3] alongside the annual National Statistics publication. Assaults against police officers may be charged under a range of statutory offences including under section 90(1) of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, section 1 of the Emergency Worker(s) Act (Scotland) 2005, and Section 89(1) of the Police Act 1996. People could be also proceeded against under Section 41(1) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 for offences committed prior to the introduction of the Police and Fire Reform Act. Over 1,300 people in Scotland had a main conviction for assaulting a police officer under these acts in 2019-20. In addition, serious assaults against police officers may be charged under common law of assault and counted as serious assaults in the publication. We cannot determine if a proceeding for serious assault was against a police officer.

Note that the Criminal Proceedings data shows the main conviction in a proceeding, which is the charge that received the most serious sentence. This means that some charges for assaulting a police officer may not be recorded in the publication, as they weren’t the main charge.

Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. For example, recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, the criminal proceedings statistics only count the main charge in a proceeding, but a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime or a set of crimes with more than one victim. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

[1] https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2020-2021/

[2] https://www.gov.scot/publications/criminal-proceedings-scotland-2019-20/documents/

[3] https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2021/05/criminal-proceedings-scotland-2019-20/documents/emergency-workers-tables/emergency-workers-tables/govscot%3Adocument/emergency-workers-tables.xlsx

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. The operational deployment of Police Officers is a matter for the Chief Constable, with oversight by the Scottish Police Authority.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The average number of hours per week that convicted prisoners spend on purposeful activity a) across the prison estate and (b) in each penal establishment in each year since 2016-17 is as follows: -

Our shared priorities with the BMA were set out in the joint letter of 02 December 2021.

https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/DC20201203GMS_Contract.pdf

This letter sets out the actions we are taking across all the work streams supporting the 2018 GP Contact offer. This includes musculo-skeletal, urgent care practitioners and primary care mental health nurses.

We are taking additional steps on mental health as set out in our PFG. By 2026, every GP Practice will have access to a mental health and wellbeing service. This will fund 1,000 additional dedicated staff who can help grow community mental health resilience and direct social prescribing.

We have further increased our Primary Care Fund from £195m to £250m in 21-22 in direct support of general practice. As part of this investment support for the Primary Care multi-disciplinary team has increased for £110 to £155 million.

The Scottish Government contract with the whistleblowing charity Protect, who provided the Whistleblowing Alert and Advice Line, ended on 31 October 2020. The final report is available to view on: https://www.gov.scot/collections/nhs-confidential-advice-and-information-line/

The Whistleblowing Standards and Independent National Whistleblowing Officer (INWO) for NHS Scotland launched on 1 April 2021. The INWO offers a mechanism for external review of how a Health Board, primary care or independent provider handles a whistleblowing case. Included in this service is a confidential advice and information line which has been in operation since 1 November 2020. This provides support and advice to staff and managers on the application of the Whistleblowing Standards and mechanisms in place to support whistleblowing and whistleblowers. As the INWO operates independently, the Scottish Government do not hold information on the number of cases reported through this service.

The NHS Recovery Plan sets out how we will take forward our aim of increasing NHS capacity by at least 10% in order to address the backlog of care and meet the ongoing healthcare needs of the country. The plan, backed by more than £1 billion of investment, focuses on providing alternative pathways of care that allow people to be treated more quickly and closer to home.

As part of this the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) is working with all Health Boards to support better use of the Active Clinical Referral Triage and Discharge Patient Initiated Review to ensure patients who need to be seen get access to the care they require in a timely manner. There is work ongoing 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 the patient and without needing to attend a hospital site.

There is also considerable work underway to educate the nursing workforce with regards to skin conditions, in order to maximise the capability of this group of staff to support patients. This will, in turn, help to maximise capacity for dermatology services.

Finally, the Dermatology Pathways app 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.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) do not hold sub specialty data for Dermatology, this information would be held by Health Boards.

Figures published by Public Health Scotland about average numbers of close contacts are based on completed Test and Protect interviews and completed online tracing form data, where index cases identify their close contacts.

As of 19 September Test and Protect has been successful in reaching over 1 million unique contacts.

We have introduced a range of measures, including increased use of digital and SMS communications and shortened call scripts for index case interviews, to ensure the contact tracing system continues to trace the contacts of people with Coronavirus and ensure they are given the right public health advice as quickly as possible, even when case numbers rise substantially. All decisions in relation to operational delivery of the contact tracing system have made in line with public health advice, including the continued prioritisation of higher risk cases. A combination of these changes is likely to have affected the average number of close contacts reported per case.

Test and Protect relies on members of the public to report all of their close contacts, to enable public health advice to be issued to those that may have been exposed to the virus. The Scottish Government strongly encourages everyone to engage with Test and Protect when contacted and fully disclose all contacts whether contacted by phone or digitally.

Over nine consecutive years, qualified nursing numbers have grown and we have also steadily increased places on undergraduate nursing courses. Ahead of each academic year, the Scottish Government undertakes a robust student intake planning process which seeks to estimate the levels of student intake necessary to service Scotland’s nursing workforce requirements in future years. At the conclusion of each year’s process, recommended target intake figures are agreed across four fields of nursing: adult, mental health, learning disability, and children’s nursing. This allows us to ensure there are sufficient nurses entering the healthcare system who specialise in each field of nursing each year.

The Scottish Government is also committed to the growth of advanced nursing practice, which is why in 2017 we committed £3m investment over 5 years to train an additional 500 advanced nurse practitioners. In April 2021, the Scottish Government published a paper setting out key areas for further expansion of advanced nursing practice. The paper can be found at the link below:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/transforming-nursing-roles-advanced-nursing-practice-phase-ii/

Regarding payments made under the NHS Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS), I refer the member to the answers to questions S5W-01770 on 24 August 2016 and S5W-32423 on 30 October 2020 . 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 .

Regarding compensation payments made outwith the CNORIS scheme, the information requested is not collected or held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained from Health Boards.

As at 1 July 2021 there were 922 general practices in Scotland.