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The Scottish Government recognises the opportunities of digital options in health and social care, particularly in rural areas where such services can help to reduce travel and address potential inequality. The Digital Health and Care Strategy’s Delivery Plan 2024-25 sets out our priorities for implementation and references a number of examples that are already helping to address challenges.

Although these programmes are nationwide and not targeted specifically at rural communities, these examples are known to provide support:

• The online consultation service Near Me that provides flexibility and reduces the need for travel where people may face transport of financial pressures, saving an estimated 70 million travel miles to date. Now a mainstream service, it provides some 30,000 online consultations a month.
• The Connect Me self-monitoring service supports people at home, allowing them to provide information about their wellbeing through text message, an app, or online. The service has supported over 107,000 people with hypertension alone.
• Digital Mental Health services continue to offer additional support, with some 74,000 referrals in the past year.? These deliver a range of mental health therapies and increased access for those who wish to use them.

The Digital Health and Care Strategy’s Delivery Plan is monitored for progress through the year and will be updated for 2025-26.

The Scottish Government is investing over £2.5 million in 2024-25 to support the mental health and wellbeing of health and care staff, reaffirming its commitment to their invaluable work. These resources include confidential mental health treatment through the Workforce Specialist Service and access to psychological therapies and interventions. Prioritising these treatment and therapeutic programmes reflects our commitment to offer care and support to those staff suffering from burnout, stress, anxiety and other conditions.

To ensure wellbeing support and advice is accessible to staff across Scotland, the National Wellbeing Hub offers a range of self-care wellbeing resources and signposting to relevant mental health and support services. Further, the National Wellbeing Helpline delivered by NHS 24 provides a 24/7 compassionate listening service which is available to all health and social care staff.

Specifically for healthcare workers in rural regions, Scottish Government are supporting the delivery of a pilot of online monthly reflective groups aimed at supporting GPs working in rural communities. These groups will provide participating GPs with a facilitated, confidential environment to connect with peers, to explore and receive support on any of the challenges they face in their work as a GP. To support the sustainability of this career enhancing activity, Scottish Government is also supporting the delivery of reflective practice groups facilitator training due to start in early 2025.

The NRAC (resource allocation formula) is an objective measure of the need for health care services across Scotland. The current formula, which was established in 2005, considers the population share of each Board adjusted for the age/sex composition of the population, the relative health needs due to morbidity and life circumstances, and the excess cost of delivering healthcare to rural and remote areas. We have committed to a review of the funding formula. This supports vital work to reduce health inequalities; ensuring that we continue to allocate funding according to the relative need for healthcare in each Board area.

The Scottish Government supports employers to overcome barriers for those experiencing the menopause in several ways.

The 2025-26 draft budget provides over £16.2 billion funding for NHS Boards, supporting services and including £1.34 billion funding for NHS Grampian - a real terms uplift.

In addition, increased capital investment of £139 million provides a 5% uplift to Boards’ core capital funding allocations as well as additional investment for priority maintenance and improvements across the NHS estate. To this end, we are working with all Boards, including NHS Grampian, to develop a whole-system NHS infrastructure plan which will support continued safe operation of existing facilities and inform longer-term investment priorities. The first part of this work – to assess immediate investment priorities across all Health Boards – is already well underway.

The number of pupils that have been recorded with a part-time timetable absence code for 1 or more openings (half-day sessions) in each local authority from 2018-19 is set out in the following table.

The Clyde closure is in place to maximise the opportunity for cod to reproduce and hence recover the stock. The closed area was defined according to extensive published literature on the types of seabed substrate on which cod prefer to spawn, and data on substrate type distribution provided by the British Geological Survey (BGS). This information has not changed since the closure was put in place.

When the Sea Fish (Prohibition on Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2024 was made, it was accompanied by a Business Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA).

Following the 2025 closure there will be a public consultation on future management. That consultation will assess any changes that have happened since 2022 and make recommendations for the future on that basis.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33751 on 29 January 2025. 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

Artificial intelligence is already proving itself to be a force for good in our health and social care service, providing a range of healthcare solutions that are transforming services for the better and in a number of cases, saving lives. An example where AI activity is already taking place in rural areas is through the North of Scotland AI Strategy for Health and Social Care.

Neil Gray: Since 2021, we have provided three permanent CT scanners to support core diagnostic imaging capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod which is deployed flexibly to Boards that require additional capacity. In addition, one further mobile CT and seven mobile MRI scanners are being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity.

In the last 2 years, the Scottish Government has supported the North Imaging Alliance to:

• Test a regional mobile MRI service, hosted within one of the North region boards, with the potential to be used anywhere in the North or across Scotland.
• Provide additional capacity (over and above existing mobile MRI arrangements) to accelerate work on reducing waiting times for MRI.

During 2024-25:

• The regional mobile MRI van is anticipated to remove circa 3,700 patients from waiting lists in the North, participating boards are Grampian, Highland, Orkney, and Tayside.
• 2,408 patients have received scans to date and have been removed from waiting lists
• This has saved NHS Orkney approximately £180k and meant 313 patients were able to receive scans locally rather than having to travel further afield.

Significant additional activity is already underway following the allocation of £30 million funding to target reductions to the national backlogs that built up throughout the pandemic. This includes over 40,000 extra diagnostic procedures.