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Work to develop the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill is drawing on a range of officials across the organisation who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government. The exact number of officials contributing as part of their wider responsibilities cannot be set out as the Scottish Government has no need to record this information.

I am delighted that the Bill has now been introduced to Parliament. This marks the culmination of a wealth of work undertaken in the past 18 months by Ms Mackay and her team, supported by the Scottish Government. Whilst introduction is a significant milestone for the Bill, I am mindful that it is one step in the Parliamentary journey and there will be considerable work ahead. The Scottish Government will continue to offer Ms Mackay every support as that work progresses.

Letters were issued to individuals at higher risk from COVID-19 in December 2021 and April 2022, notifying them of their potential eligibility for COVID-19 treatments. Registered care home providers also received letters advising them on access arrangements in January 2022 and July 2022. In addition, general information on the arrangements for direct access to COVID-19 treatments in Scotland can be found on NHS Inform .

The Scottish Government also encourages individuals to speak to their GP or specialist clinician about managing their COVID-19 risk, as they are best placed to provide advice on an individuals’ condition and potential eligibility for treatments. The final decision on whether to prescribe a COVID-19 treatment, and which treatment to prescribe, is entirely for a clinician to make.

Transport Scotland officials have discussed a number of different propositions for new ferry services to Europe with prospective promoters and port operators. These discussions are conducted with due cognisance of promoters’ commercial considerations. We will continue to work closely with our ports and potential operators in exploring propositions for establishing new services.

We have worked to develop and implement a quality assurance programme for the General Standards for Neurological Care and Support. A Self-evaluation tool was published by Healthcare Improvement Scotland in April 2023, to help enable services to measure their own implementation of the standards.

Undertaking this work will identify areas of good practice and improvement across NHS Scotland and help to drive forward better standards of care for people with neurological conditions, including migraine.

Our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care supports the remobilisation and recovery of health and social care services and sets out priorities for recruitment, training and retention.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21589 on 5 October 2023, which contains data from Public Health Scotland on the number of inpatient and day case admissions to hospital where a diagnosis of dog attack (bite or strike) was recorded, from 2010 to 2022, in Scotland. Public Health Scotland do not collect that data broken down by dog breed type.

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

I met with representatives of the hospice sector on 3 October to discuss funding and the development of a new framework.

I have committed to holding a round table later this year to discuss the development of a framework with health and social care partnerships and independent hospices to support local planning, commissioning and funding of independent hospice care.

Policing is and will continue to be a priority for this Government. Police funding has increased year-on-year since 2016-17, with the Scottish Government investing more than £11.6 billion since the creation of Police Scotland in 2013. The total budget for policing in 2023-24 is over £1.4 billion, which includes an additional £80 million in resource funding. This provides a stable basis from which to improve the delivery of policing and enhance the safety and security of communities across Scotland.

Specific decisions on deployment of resources are a matter for the Chief Constable who is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority.

Anyone affected by this kind of incident should report it to Police Scotland.

We understand the distress and pain that migraines cause and want to ensure that everyone living with this debilitating condition can access the best possible care and support.

The Neurology Specialty Delivery Group (SDG), commissioned via the National Centre for Sustainable Delivery, has developed a national pathway for headache, including migraine, which will be published and implemented this autumn.

Pathologists will only retain whole organs on rare occasions when it is absolutely necessary to establish a cause of death. In such cases, there are well-established procedures for ensuring that families are immediately advised when organ retention is a possibility and the options for return of that organ are discussed with them.

It is a matter for the pathologist conducting the post mortem examination to decide whether it is necessary to remove a whole organ, such as the brain, from the body of a deceased person during a post mortem examination for further testing. COPFS keeps a record of all cases where a pathologist has decided that it is necessary to retain a whole organ during a post mortem examination. This record includes details of when an organ is returned to the family of the deceased at the conclusion of examinations.

Between 1 January and 31 August 2023, COPFS instructed 4,460 post mortem examinations.

The brain required to be retained by the pathologist for further examination to determine the cause of death in one of those cases. That brain is no longer retained by the pathologist and was released to the nearest relatives in accordance with their wishes.

In 400 of those 4,460 cases, temporary removal of the brain by the pathologist during the post mortem examination took place to enable samples to be taken for neuropathological examination. In each case, the brain was returned to the body prior to the conclusion of the post mortem examination and the release of the deceased’s body to their nearest relatives.

In Scotland, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) appraises the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly licensed medicines. Following a full submission for rimegepant (Vydura ® ) for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults, the SMC issued ‘accepted for restricted use’ advice for routine use of this medicine in NHS Scotland on 9 May 2023.

The SMC restriction is that the use of this medicine should be restricted to patients who have had inadequate symptom relief after trials of at least two triptans (a group of medicines used to treat migraine or headache), or in whom triptans are contraindicated or not tolerated; and have inadequate pain relief with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and paracetamol. Final draft guidance on routine use of this medicine in NHS England issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is similar to that issued for Scotland.