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Scottish Government officials have been meeting regularly with the UK Government and the other devolved nations to discuss and share plans around the potential impact of synthetic opioids. These meetings are now occurring on a monthly basis. This issue has also been raised on a number of occasions at a Ministerial level, including at the recent British Irish Council Ministerial meeting in January and the UK Drugs Ministerial meeting which took place in November.

The early warning system using wastewater analysis and overdose reports will provide vital information in terms of changes in the drug supply and in identifying changes in use in different locations. Scottish Water are involved with this work and we will get the data on a quarterly basis and this will feed into our surveillance plans.

It is vital that we are able to share surveillance information, intelligence and details on changes in drug trends between the different administrations, particularly as the illegal drug supply is not impacted by borders.

The information requested on how many NHS care navigators currently work in the NHS, broken down by NHS board is not centrally available.

Information on the NHS Scotland Workforce, broken down by NHS Board, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland Workforce Data .

The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) undertook a data collection exercise in December 2023 on the presence of RAAC in social housing. Findings of this have been published by SHR giving a breakdown of the number of homes identified as containing RAAC and how many were still under investigation. At that time, 953 homes were identified with RAAC present across 9 social landlords and 27,318 homes were still under investigation. This was further broken down by landlord and analysed by local authority area. The findings are available on the SHR website FOI requested copy of RAAC dataset | Scottish Housing Regulator .

SHR also sought additional information on homes where social landlords have maintenance obligations, provide factoring services, or have previously sold. The intelligence gathered suggests RAAC has been primarily used in public sector house building.

SHR are currently undertaking further data collection and have requested updates from landlords where investigations are still ongoing and will release their findings in due course. SHR will continue to engage with landlords who have identified RAAC and the Scottish Government will be engaging directly with the affected landlords through the RAAC Cross Sector Working Group.

The 2023-24 Programme for Government outlined our commitment to develop legislative proposals and other actions to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland. In 2023, we held a consultation that sought views on the changes and actions required to advance the approach. An independent analysis report of the consultation was published in October 2023.

We are undertaking detailed analysis of respondents’ feedback in relation to the proposal for a duty to advance Community Wealth Building and examining the feasibility of the proposals for other areas of legislative change that were submitted through the consultation exercise.

On the morning of 25 March 2024 there were (a) no 16 year olds and (b) five 17 year olds held in Young Offender Institutions in Scotland.

Many of the technologies required for hydrogen are already mature, however research and innovation still has an important role to play to reduce costs, improve integration models and efficiency to help enable the production and use of hydrogen at scale.

We continue to build the research base in collaboration with academia and industry on a number of fronts for example Scottish Government are partnering with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the MultHyFuel Programme designed to help the development of a common strategy for implementing Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (HRS) in multi-fuel contexts, contributing to the harmonization of existing laws and standards based on practical, theoretical and experimental data as well as on the active and continuous engagement of key stakeholders.

Our Emerging Energy Technologies Fund Hydrogen Innovation Scheme (HIS) was launched in June 2022 to support the Scottish Government’s commitment to drive technological progress and innovation in the hydrogen field. To date the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme has offered grants totalling over £7m to 31 projects that will drive innovation in renewable hydrogen production, storage, and distribution.

Additionally, we are funding a Hydrogen Business Development service, delivered through the Energy Technology Partnership, to accelerate knowledge exchange between academia and enterprises to stimulate innovation in the hydrogen sector.

In the area of Carbon Capture Technology we are advised by the Climate Change Committee, the independent, statutory body established to advise on emissions targets, that CCS is a necessity, not an option, and we have regular engagement with Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde.

In December I announced plans to provide refreshed guidance to schools on the use of mobile phones, as part of the joint action plan to respond to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research. The existing guidance was produced in 2013 and it is right that this is reviewed in light of the evidence provided by the Behaviour In Scotland's Schools Research 2023 and PISA. I have committed that the refreshed guidance will be developed in consultation with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools. The updated guidance will be published in Spring 2024.

Dentists operating in rural areas can also apply to the remote areas allowance. The allowance is calculated on their proportion of NHS earnings to total earnings and therefore can be awarded up to £9000 per year. Other allowances are available for dentists as available in the Statement of Dental Remuneration.

he importance of retaining individuals living with HIV in treatment and care is recognised in the UNAIDS/WHO targets and the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal as one of the five pillars of interventions (entry into and retention in specialist HIV care). Specialist HIV services and HIV third sector organisations will work together to optimise the updating of information with regards to the movement or transfer of individuals to facilitate engagement with services.

This work will be supported by Public Health Scotland through the provision of NHS board level data on people diagnosed with HIV but not attending specialist treatment and care services for whom, through linkage of data to migration, death, hospitalisation, prescription and vaccination datasets, there is evidence that they remain resident in Scotland.

We do not know the numbers of children affected because the information has not been collected historically.

In response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (IMMDSR), the Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to establish a medicines in pregnancy surveillance asset. This resource will support monitoring and reporting to progress improvements in the safe use of valproate and other teratogenic medicines in Scotland. Its first output is due to be published by PHS in April 2024 and will include prescribing data and trends for valproate and other anti-seizure medicines.