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As part of the Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has published a number of clinical pathways and guidance, co-designed with clinicians from specialty delivery groups to manage patients referred routinely for colonoscopy. This includes the recently published qFIT clinical consensus document and National guidance for specifically managing Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) symptoms. It is for Health Boards and clinicians to embed these pathways locally and ensure capacity within the six week diagnostic standard. The pathways are published on Health Board websites, and it is expected all boards should be implementing these locally.

Clinicians can also refer to IBD UK’s IBD Standards for advice on delivering high-quality care at every point in a patient’s journey.

The information requested on how many clinics offer dermatology services, broken down by NHS board is not held centrally.

Telecommunications policy, which includes mobile connectivity, is currently reserved to the UK Government. Whilst the Scottish Government has not conducted any analysis on the economic impacts of poor mobile connectivity, we do recognise the social and economic importance of high-quality and reliable mobile services, particularly for our rural and island areas. Through our Scottish 4G Infill (S4GI) programme, we have invested £28.75 million to deliver and activate 55 mobile masts in areas that previously had no coverage.

Social Security Scotland does not currently publish statistics on the number of people who receive more than one benefit from Social Security Scotland. Social Security Scotland recently published Official Statistics on the number of individual clients paid and in 2024-25, Social Security Scotland paid 962,525 individual clients (excluding clients in receipt of Carer’s Allowance Supplement).

The information requested on how many dermatology service staff are employed by each NHS board is not held centrally.

Information requested on how many dermatology consultants are employed by each NHS board can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the scale of organised child sexual exploitation. External agencies such as Police Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and local authorities collect and record concerns and/or offences related to child sexual abuse and exploitation tailored to their statutory and operational responsibilities.

Responsibility for measuring Scotland’s inward investment performance, which includes planned jobs and supply chain impacts for involved projects, rests with Scottish Enterprise. The independent EY Attractiveness Survey and the UK Government’s Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) annual inward investment results provide an additional performance indicator for inward investment. Collectively, the results provide robust estimates of Scotland’s inward investment activity and performance.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is not a classification that the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise nor EY use when measuring the performance of inward investment projects into Scotland.

Scotland has a strong record in attracting foreign direct investment and our Inward Investment Plan (IIP) plays a central role in supporting our ambitions to be a destination of choice for global inward investors. Information on how Scotland has performed in terms of attracting inward investment projects is available via the EY attractiveness survey (the latest results can be found here: ey-uk-attractiveness-survey-scotland-06-2025.pdf) and the Department for Business and Trade Inward Investment Results (the latest results can be found here: DBT inward investment results 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK). Scottish Enterprise results will be published in the Autumn.

A table has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under (Bib Number 65938) that provides a breakdown, by vessel, of the fuel usage over the last 3 years on the CalMac service.

The fuel usage over the last three years, by vessels operating on NorthLink Ferry services, is detailed below. For clarity, CY05 ended June 2025. However, the figures have still to be reconciled, and are therefore not available.

MV Hrossey MV Hjaltland MV Hildasay MV Hellier MV Hamnavore

CY2 July 2021 - June 2023 9058.94 9212,99 3795.80 3611.50 3756.20

CY3 July 2022 - June 2023 9,023.20 8840,6 3660.34 3916.90 4046.10

CY4 July 2023 - June 2024 8674.60 8678 3710.60 3591.50 3732.20

The Scottish Government issued a Medicine Supply Alert Notice (MSAN) relating to supply disruption of the medicine naloxegol on 25 April 2024. The anticipated resupply date for the medicine has since been moved to 15 August 2025 and the medicine is unavailable throughout the UK. The Scottish Government appreciates the frustration and concern that this continued shortage will be having on patients prescribed this medication and while medicines supply continues to be reserved matter for the UK Government, we continue to press for a lasting solution in our engagement with the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care.

The Scottish Government has had no recent discussions with the DVSA about the expansion of locations offered by the Scottish Driving Assessment Service.

The Scottish Driving Assessment Service is a matter for NHS Boards, and is hosted by NHS Lothian on behalf of NHS Scotland. The service is free for users and is currently funded through contributions from NHS Boards to NHS Lothian.

The NHS Directors of Planning Group has agreed to oversee a review of the Scottish Driving Assessment Service (SDAS) and present a paper to the NHS Boards Chief Executives group. A Working Group will oversee a detailed scoping exercise to understand the demand for driving assessment in Scotland, and how this is currently being met.

It is proposed that the review will conclude with an Option Appraisal, supported by NHS Ayrshire and Arran, enabling stakeholders from throughout Scotland to discuss and appraise potential future service delivery models for driving assessment in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with NHS Ayrshire and Arran, and the review is expected to conclude in late 2025.