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The Scottish Government is not aware of other Health and Social Care Partnerships using the same criteria being used by East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership, although other local partnerships take similar issues around staffing and safety in to account.

NHS 24 aims to provide high standards of care and despite the substantial increase in demand placed on the Service by the outbreak of COVID-19, NHS 24 continues to provide a highly effective, safe triage system to the people of Scotland.

As a result of this increased demand, and changes to service delivery, we have increased funding to NHS 24 by over £20m this year for additional recruitment and the addition of a new call centre in Dundee, which opened in December 2021.

This is supporting the additional recruitment of 575 full time equivalent call handlers and 140 full time equivalent clinicians to date, including through the recently established 24/7 mental health hub.

Calls to the 111 Service can be abandoned for a variety of reasons, including telephony providers ending calls after a period of time or patients choosing to end the call after being connected and hearing the options available to them. These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform, or contacting another area of the health service better placed to meet their needs.

NHS 24 is undertaking a piece of work to evaluate abandoned calls and determine how many of these callers are accessing other advice/support as directed and how many are re-dialling the Service after their call has been cut off by telephony providers or they have hung up the call. This will involve working closely with telephony provider and significant engagement with callers to the Service and will help the Service reduce instances of abandoned calls.

We will commission and support the Understanding Scottish Places (USP) consortium to review evaluation and data needs and share that understanding so that local partners can develop solutions that respond to the local circumstances.

In addition, the approach adopted via the Scotland Loves Local programme works with local partners to shape local opportunities that encourage and motivate people to change behaviours by thinking local first and supporting their local businesses and communities.

The independent review of the 2013 Town Centre Action Plan, A New future for Scotland’s Town Centres, was commissioned by Scottish Ministers and published in February 2021. We are working collaboratively with COSLA and partners to respond to the review with a revised action plan which will be published later in the spring, subject to approval from Ministers and COSLA.

The Scottish Government is establishing a group to help identify potential place demonstrator projects, including in towns and town centres, as part of our 5 year £325 million Place-Based Investment Programme.

The budget allocated to the Energy Investment Fund in 2021-22 was up to £13 million, no budget has been allocated for any future financial years. There are new investment mechanisms in place through the Scottish National Investment Bank which supports the Scottish Government's strategic priorities to achieving our net zero ambitions.

The Energy Investment Fund will close at the end of this financial year 2021-22. The Fund was established in 2013, (succeeding the Renewable Energy Investment Fund) with funding from the Fossil Fuel Levy, to address market failure in capital funding in specific renewable energy sectors. The Fund has been very successful over the years, however, the market for capital funding has changed since 2013. There are new investment mechanisms in place, through the Scottish National Investment Bank, which supports the Scottish Government's strategic priorities to achieving our net zero ambitions.

Collective bargaining agreements are not considered as part of that assessment.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has advised that it is in discussions with the manufacturer of Palforzia ® , Aimmune Therapeutics UK Limited, regarding their plans for a submission to the SMC’s appraisal process. The decision to make a submission, and the timing of that submission, are entirely for the manufacturer to make. Information on SMC timelines and submission scheduling can be found here . Once the manufacturer has provided the Palforzia ® submission to the SMC, information on the specific timelines for this assessment will be available via the search facility available on the home page of the SMC’s website here . After a submission is received and scheduled for review by the SMC, the resulting advice is e published and takes effect for NHS Scotland from the month following the review meeting.

As soon as the medicine is submitted to the SMC for appraisal, Health Boards have procedures in place using the Peer Approved Clinical System “PACS Tier Two” process which provides an opportunity for doctors, on a case by case basis for individual patients, to request the use of the medicine in advance of the SMC completing the appraisal process and issuing its advice.

Vessel procurement is not considered as part of this assessment.

The vessel procurement strategy will be taken forward in the Islands Connectivity Plan and details have already been included in the Infrastructure Investment Plan.