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Preparation for outbreaks of infectious disease is an ongoing part of health protection. That work is led by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care but the breadth of response required to respond to pandemic events is laid out in the 2022 Strategic Framework Update for COVID-19 and the four-harms approach to decision-making used by the Scottish Government for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the UK Government and the other Devolved Administrations on a range of risks including pandemic preparedness. The Scottish Government works closely with the cross-government Pandemic Disease Capabilities Board to keep Scotland’s readiness up to date.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15536. on‎ 17 March 2023. Any update of progress of this independent review would require to come from NHS Highland as the responsible agency for implementation.

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

The costs of the NHS Pension Scheme (Scotland) for employers are determined by the quadrennial scheme valuation. The latest valuation, the 2020 valuation, is currently in progress and will determine the new employer contribution rate effective from 1 April 2024. There are many variables which can impact the final result of the valuation, not least the SCAPE discount rate which is still to be confirmed by HM Treasury, therefore it is too early to predict the impact on employer costs at the present time.

The Scottish Government is aware that there is still some substantial work to do to fully implement the recommendations of the review and would continue to encourage NHS Highland and the local communities to work together to achieve this.

While NHS Boards hold the direct responsibility for staffing, we are providing direct investment to assist boards, including those in the South Scotland region, in growing and retaining their workforce. This has included funding to support the recruitment of up to 750 nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals from overseas before April 2023.

In addition, our National Workforce Strategy sets out the actions we will take in partnership with Boards to plan, attract, train, employ and nurture the health and social care workforce.

We plan to publish a new cancer strategy in Spring 2023.

The Future Catching Policy (FCP) is being developed to deliver increased selectivity and sustainability across Scotland’s diverse and varied fishing fleet. Once implemented, the FCP will support increased confidence in, and an increased accountability of, Scotland’s fishing fleets. The consultation on the FCP closed last year and analysis of responses is now complete with a full report, and government response, to be published this year.

Preliminary findings from the EAVE II study, led by Public Health Scotland in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, were published in a preprint article on 7 March 2023. This article presents preliminary analysis of the number of adults aged 18 and over presenting with long COVID in general practice. It uses routinely collected clinical data from almost the entire adult population in Scotland.

Please note that these findings are preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed.

This study estimates that, depending on the outcome measure used, between 0.02% to 1.8% of the participant cohort had long COVID at some point over the course of the study (March 2020 to October 2022). The total number of cases identified each year have not been published with the preprint article. However, findings suggest that there was a general increase in new long COVID cases between September 2020 to April 2022, interrupted by a temporary decline between February and May 2021. Findings suggest a general decline in new long COVID cases from April to October 2022. The outcome measures used include, but are not limited to, diagnosis recorded via clinical codes. The article notes that these figures represent a probable under-recording of cases.

For comparison, the estimated prevalence of self-reported (as opposed to clinically diagnosed) long COVID in Scotland from the ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey was 3.53% (95% confidence interval: 3.23% to 3.83%) for the four week period ending 1 October 2022, which is the four-weekly estimate most closely aligned with the end of the study period.

Preliminary findings from this analysis suggest that, across NHS health boards, cases of long COVID were largely proportionate to population shares. However, findings suggest that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde saw a disproportionately large share of cases, and NHS Lothian saw a disproportionately small share of cases.

Please refer to the preprint article for further details: Identifying Long Covid Using Electronic Health Records: A National Observational Cohort Study in Scotland .

Guidance is provided by the Scottish Government to Health Boards which is publicly available on the following website SHOW - SGHSC - Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates including guidance on matters in relation to attraction and retention of medical and non-medical staff. The Centre for Workforce Supply, hosted by NHS Education for Scotland works with Health Boards to support the building of workforce capacity.

The Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan , published in November 2021, is backed by £70m investment. The plan focuses on a number of key areas including Development and Infrastructure Innovation and Redesign to provide alternatives to traditional endoscopy. This includes Capsule Colonoscopy Endoscopy ( CCE ), Computer Tomography ( CT ), Cytosponge and Transnasal Endoscopy ( TNE ).

In Urology, alternative delivery pathways include Diagnostic Urology Hubs and 'One Stop' clinics, such as the Urology Hub at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, which was opened in July 2022.

The Scottish Government does not hold the detailed information centrally, the member should contact NHS Boards directly.