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The Scottish Government is currently working with Public Health Scotland to develop an online platform for members of the public to access information on the average waiting times for a range of treatments within their health board area. We expect the platform to be available this summer.

During the pandemic, the private sector was utilised to provide additional capacity to treat urgent and cancer patients, and this proved to be of great assistance. We remain open to the option of utilising the private sector again to support orthopaedics and other specialties with excessively long waiting lists. However, at present - and for the foreseeable future - the private sector has very limited capacity due to a backlog in their own private patients. There is therefore very limited capacity available for the treatment of NHS patients in these facilities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06836 on 8 March 2022. 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 total number of hours of social care provided each year by integration joint boards is not held centrally.

Public Health Scotland publish the Experimental Statistics publication: “Insights into Social Care: Statistics for Scotland” which includes some information on the number of hours of social care provided by different Health and Social Care Partnerships. This includes the number of hours of home care provided by Fife HSCP in each quarter since Q4 2017-18. This release is publicly available via the following link:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/insights-in-social-care-statistics-for-scotland/insights-in-social-care-statistics-for-scotland-support-provided-or-funded-by-health-and-social-care-partnerships-in-scotland-201920-202021/home-care/

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant as part of the annual local government finance settlement. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including any funding for local authority-funded care home places, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The pandemic has been the biggest shock our NHS has ever faced. It has necessitated the imposition of Infection Prevention Control measures in order to contain its spread, particularly prior to the vaccination programme being fully rolled out.

These IPC measures, which have recently been deescalated, changed the way GPs see their patients. The Scottish Government wants to see greater availability of face-to-face appointments and is working with the BMA and RCGP to ensure this happens as quickly as possible. However, Covid has not gone away yet, therefore some precautions remain in place. We are clear that where clinically necessary face-to-face consultations will always be available to those who need them.

We must continue to move toward a position where choice is being offered routinely, and the Scottish Government welcomes the GMC’s proposed changes to the Good Medical Practice guidance placing a greater emphasis on shared decision-making between GPs and their patients.

Many GP practices did offer patients video or phone consultations as well as in-person face-to-face consultations before the pandemic changed the balance and we expect a number of patients will wish to continue afterwards with video or phone consultations rather than travel to their GP practice. Ultimately, what is most important is that appointments are agreed through shared decision making, balancing patient choice and clinical judgement.

We continue to explore new ways and approaches to support people to, for example, upload an image of their skin condition for review. This can support people to seek advice in a way that best supports their needs and requirements whilst also ensuring they still have access to a face-to-face appointment.

All GP practices are expected to follow the Infection Prevention and Control Manual for in-person visits as well as their local Health Board's guidance.

We welcome Leukaemia Care’s report and its recommendations to improve patient outcomes. We are pleased to say that we are closely aligned to the recommendations found in this report. Our Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, published in January 2019, ensure patients on active monitoring are accounted for in planning cancer care and support primary care clinicians in recognising cancer symptoms, including chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

We continue to work with health professionals and the Scottish Primary Care Cancer Group to raise awareness of symptoms and promote referral best practice.

Alongside this work, funding of up to £2.5 million has been issued over 2021-22 and 2022-23 to support 12 pilot programmes across Scotland to deliver a single point of contact (SPoC) for cancer patients. This contact will support patients to discuss questions or anxieties related to their clinical care from the point of diagnosis, receive timely and accurate advice on their appointments, test and results, have the chance to discuss what non-clinical support may be available for them and their family following a cancer diagnosis, understand their treatment plan and expected timelines for treatment delivery, self-manage (aspects of) their condition, and access available services as appropriate following discharge.

Additionally, we have worked with the Scottish Cancer Coalition (SCC) to produce a patient leaflet to highlight the work of the charities which are members of the coalition and the support they can provide to patients.

NHS Boards understand and communicate with patients the importance of keeping as fit and healthy as possible while waiting for joint replacement surgery. To support patients waiting and recovering from surgery, Boards and partner organisations offer a range of support including pain management, mental health, physiotherapy, access to leisure services, weight management and financial support. Information and advice is also available through online platforms like NHS Inform.

We also work in close partnership with third-sector organisations who provide a wealth of knowledge and care though lived experience which many patients value. Charities such as Versus Arthritis also offer support to those awaiting treatment, including advice, information and practical help to manage the impact of musculoskeletal pain on people’s wellbeing. They also provide peer-led support such as walking groups and tai chi in local areas which enable people to improve their physical fitness and maintain their mental health and quality of life both before and after treatment.

To date our commitment to provide long-term investment of over £500 million on bus priority infrastructure has taken the form of the Bus Partnership Fund (BPF) and the Bus Priority Rapid Deployment Fund (BPRDF). Both funds aim to support local authorities – in partnership with bus operators – to tackle the negative impacts of congestion on bus services.

In March 2020, the BPF was paused as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The BPRDF provided funding to local authorities to deliver temporary bus priority measures during the pandemic. The BPF relaunched in November 2020 for proposals for permanent priority measures on local roads. Through BPF, an initial £25.8m of funding has been awarded to eleven partnerships covering 28 local authorities for initial appraisal work to develop ambitious new bus priority infrastructure.

The exact number of unpaid carers living in Scotland is not known. Therefore, the number of unpaid carers in Scotland is estimated from national survey data. The preferred survey used to estimate the number of unpaid carers is the Scottish Health Survey , as it samples both adults and children and allows for detailed breakdowns.

The latest estimates from the 2020 Scottish Health Survey telephone survey , which ran with a reduced number of questions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, suggest that there were around 839,000 (between 738,000 and 939,000) adult unpaid carers (aged 18+) living in Scotland in 2020.

This report cannot be compared to previous years due to differences in methodology from the main Scottish Health Survey series.

Data from the 2021 Scottish Health Survey will be published in Autumn 2022.