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Employers with ten or more staff are eligible to participate in the workplace asymptomatic testing programme. The programme allows participating organisations to offer COVID-19 testing to any individuals who work at the location, including employees, volunteers, contractors and agency staff. Agencies which meet the criteria can also enrol in the programme to provide their staff with tests. This includes agencies providing staff to the health and social care sectors.

If an employer or agency does not provide workplace testing, lateral flow device test kits are widely available to individuals through the universally accessible testing offer. Kits can be collected from test sites, pharmacies and local authority collection points, or ordered online for home delivery.

Information on TAVI procedures in Scotland for 2018-19 and 2019-20 was submitted by sites to the UK National Cardiac Audit Programme. Published data is available from the British Cardiovascular Interventional Society (BCIS) - Audit Results - British Cardiovascular Intervention Society (bcis.org.uk) .

The published reports indicate that in 2018-19 there were 310 TAVI procedures, and in 2019-20 there were 400 TAVI procedures carried out in Scotland. The reports do not break down the number of cases per Scottish site.

The Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme is currently working with TAVI sites across Scotland to collate data for 2020-21 onwards.

Primary care professionals have access to multiple sources of education and update regarding heart valve disease and management both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Through local interface groups local pathways to support diagnosis and management have been developed at board level with opportunities for specialist advice and rapid referral where required.

Scottish Government has no current plans to carry out a public awareness campaign on heart valve disease.

Councils must give due regard to the statutory guidance published by the Scottish Government in contracting for retrofit and energy efficiency projects. We would expect councils to apply relevant and proportionate selection criteria to establish the suitability of bidders as part of their procurement. These are the minimum standards or requirements that bidders must meet in order to progress. For example by establishing their suitability; financial standing; and their technical and professional ability to undertake the necessary works.

Councils must clearly target fuel poor areas as part of projects funded through our Area Based Schemes (ABS). For example by showing that a project is located in one of the most deprived 25% of areas by SIMD classification. Councils are expected to obtain the necessary information to confirm that relevant households and properties are also eligible for grant-in-aid based upon the guidance provided by the Scottish Government.

When applying for support through the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund projects are required to provide a variety of information including a financial model, a feasibility study, project programme and risk register.

The Scottish Government meets with health boards on a regular basis to discuss the vaccination programme. Ensuring it is as accessible as possible for everyone is a key priority. As individual requirements are different, anyone who has concerns about access arrangements should contact their local health board to discuss any additional support needs they have so that adjustments can be made to accommodate them.

The NHS Inform website provides a breakdown of support available by local health board, including help finding transport to your vaccination appointment.

The Scottish Government already provides grant funding support for SME businesses to replace fossil fuel heating systems with zero emissions systems. Since 2020, the SME loan/cashback scheme has been offering interest-free loans of up to £100,000 with a 75% cashback grant of up to £10,000 towards the costs of a renewables heating system and a further 30% cashback grant up to £10,000 for energy efficiency measures.

We have committed to continuing our SME loan and cashback (or grant replacement) schemes until at least 2023.

The process for identifying and designating one or more new National Parks in Scotland will involve a fair and transparent bidding and evaluation process to identify the area or areas which will be put forward to obtain National Park status and allow the statutory process to begin. The Scottish Government remains open minded about the number of areas which will be progressed to National Park designation during the lifetime of this Parliament.

COSLA recommended that a “non-legally committed” scheme is defined, for this purpose, as a scheme that has not been notified under schedule 2 of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. This did not mean that current contracts should be immediately stopped but they should be paused at an appropriate time, where practicable, for example when a key project milestone is reached. Local authorities should not begin the notification process for Cycle 1 schemes if they have not already done so.

The scoping exercise referred to in S6W-04556 will help the Scottish Government to establish current service provision for miscarriage care and support that is available to women who experience unexpected pregnancy complications across all 14 Health Boards and will issue shortly. The issue of the questionnaire has been delayed due to service pressures within the NHS because of the ongoing pandemic. The first roundtable is expected to take place in March 2022 and we plan to invite health professionals and baby loss charities as well as inviting bereaved parents to share their experiences.