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There is one Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) accredited undergraduate course currently available in Scotland, provided by the University of West of Scotland. The University of West of Scotland are able to provide data over the past 9 years on the number of people who have graduated with this degree:

On 2 January 2023, the number of people waiting for social care support assessment was 5,440. The latest data published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) shows that there were 4,122 waiting for a social care support assessment on 17 April 2023.

Please note:

• Scotland estimates are derived by summing the number of people waiting from the partnerships. This excludes one Health and Social Care Partnership who were unable to supply data.
• Figures are collected each Monday.

Source: Public Health Scotland, Social care – Demand for Care at Home services , published 25 April 2023.

NTC Forth Valley will open in summer 2023 at a projected cost of £12.7 million.

NTC Golden Jubilee Phase 2 - will open in winter 2023 at a projected costs of £82.3 million.

The business cases for the remaining National Treatment Centre in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, including the new Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, are under development and costs/opening dates will be confirmed when final business cases are submitted.

The Scottish Government wants to see empty homes officers working across all local authorities. I can confirm that the following local authorities do not have an empty homes officer post:

• Clackmannanshire
• East Dunbartonshire
• East Lothian
• East Renfrewshire
• Midlothian
• Shetland
• West Lothian

We do not routinely collect information about empty homes officer vacancies.

The Scottish Government has worked collaboratively with partners, patients and third sector organisations in recent months to develop a ten year cancer strategy for Scotland.

Due to publish Spring 2023, the strategy will take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways, from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care. It aims to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible, care across Scotland, including those affected by brain cancer.

A new earlier diagnosis vision will feature within the strategy and will include similar actions to those outlined in the Brain Tumour Charity’s report. This includes continuing to deliver our Detect Cancer Earlier Programme, working with primary care clinicians to ensure they have direct access to diagnostic tests and quality education sources; optimal cancer diagnostic pathways are designed and implemented across NHS Scotland; and public campaigns educate and empower those with possible symptoms to act early.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring fund accessibility as part of ongoing implementation. We met with Health Boards in summer 2022 to discuss the implementation of the fund and areas for improvement, including accessibility.

Information on Social Care Eligibility and Waiting times is collected and published by the Scottish Government and this includes waiting times between completion of a community care assessment and delivery of personal care services (for which there is a six week target). The latest data are publicly available via the following link: Social Care Eligibility Criteria And Waiting Times, Scotland, 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Many Local Authorities have reported difficulty in providing the information asked for in this data collection, which has had a significant impact on the robustness of the information available for analysis. We are working with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to consider the future of this data and are developing plans to capture waiting times data within existing Social Care collections returned to PHS, aiming to make it more straightforward for partnerships to provide data, and in turn resulting in more complete and consistent data in the future.

For those able to provide data for 2020-21, around 81% of people aged 65 and over waited less than 6 weeks between completion of a community care assessment and delivery of a personal care service (based on 15 LAs). For people aged 18-64, this figure was slightly lower at 74% (based on 20 LAs) (see annex 4 of the tables which accompany the release).

Information on Social Care Eligibility and Waiting times is collected and published by the Scottish Government, and includes the waiting times between first contact with services and the completion of a community care assessment. The latest data are publicly available via the following link: Social Care Eligibility Criteria And Waiting Times, Scotland, 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Many Local Authorities have reported difficulty in providing the information asked for in this data collection, which has had a significant impact on the robustness of the information available for analysis. We are working with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to consider the future of this data and are developing plans to capture waiting times data within existing Social Care collections returned to PHS, aiming to make it more straightforward for partnerships to provide data, and in turn resulting in more complete and consistent data in the future.

For those able to provide data for 2020-21, around 58% of people aged 65 and over waited less than 2 weeks between first contact and completion of a community care assessment (based on 16 LAs) and 21% waited longer than 6 weeks. For people aged 18-64, just over half (53%) waited up to 4 weeks (based on 19 LAs) with 36% waiting more than 6 weeks. (See annex 3 of the tables which accompany the release).

The Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum develops and promotes health and safety guidance for the waste management industry with input from industry experts and other bodies, such as the Health and Safety Executive.

Existing WISH guidance offers advice on eliminating or reducing the risk of serious injury associated with the handling, storage and disposal of unwanted or unidentifiable gas cylinders (‘orphaned’ cylinders) that may appear in the waste stream.

WISH has also advised that it is developing new guidance on how Material Recovery Facilities can address the dangers of gas cylinder and aerosol explosions.

Following discussion at the Waste and Resources Sector Forum, waste sector stakeholders are considering any other actions that could be taken to address key fire safety risks. We will continue to work closely with the sector to consider any further actions required to ensure safe recycling and disposal of nitrous oxide canisters.

This information is not held centrally within the Scottish Government.

Any arrangements for NHS patients to be treated at an Independent Sector hospital would need to be made between the patient, NHS Board and their clinical team.

While a patient has the right, at any time, to exercise choice and seek private treatment, there can never be the expectation that the NHS will pay for it. The reimbursement of any costs incurred when a patient opts for private treatment, however, is a matter for consideration by the local Health Board.