Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government provides funding to support dementia research via a number of mechanisms.

• Direct funding of research projects and fellowships submitted to the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) funding panels for consideration. In common with all other applications, those in dementia go through CSO's external independent expert review process to enable funding decisions to be made based on the quality and importance of the proposed research. The funding level is subject to quality and number of applications submitted. CSO also has a programme of collaboration with research charities to co-fund research, including in dementia. In this instance the charity may take the lead in organising the independent external review process.
• Funding of the NHS Research Scotland Dementia and Neuroprogressive Disease Research Network since 2008/9 (currently £506,000 per annum) to promote a culture of clinical research in dementia and ND across Scotland and to maximise patient recruitment to high quality clinical studies.
• Further indirect support is provided though an annual contribution (currently around £10m) to the major National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) programmes that cover a broad range of health research including dementia research across the UK.

The following table provides a breakdown of CSO funding in dementia research through project/fellowship funding and the annual funding provided to the NRS Dementia and Neuroprogressive Disease research network. Project and fellowship funding is allocated to the year in which the funding commitment was made. Data was extracted from the CSO database and covers research on Alzheimer’s Disease, other cause dementia and studies on cognitive ageing / decline.

The breakdown of the £10.6 million cost of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry to 31st August 2019 is as follows.

We support the development of powerchair and para-football and provide funding to the Scottish FA, through sport scotland, to encourage everyone to play our national game.

sport scotland provides direct funding to Scottish Disability Sport, the co-ordinating body for all sports for people of all ages and abilities with a physical, sensory and learning disability. sport scotland’s investment in many Sports Governing Bodies also supports sport-specific activity for participants with disabilities.

The Scottish Government welcomes this new report from the Red Cross and officials will be meeting with the organisation this month to discuss further. We are committed to ensuring that discharge planning procedures are improved across Scotland and that people experience a seamless journey through the health and social care system.

To drive improvement, a cross sector team of health and social care professionals, including clinicians, social work and the Scottish Ambulance Service will provide focussed support on unscheduled care and delayed discharges. This will contribute to the delivery of the proposals in the Ministerial Strategic Group for Health and Community Care's review of progress with integration.

This information is not collected or held centrally.

Pre-2014 Position:

From records available between 2007-08 and 2013-14, 315 settlement agreements containing confidentiality clauses signed by the relevant staff were agreed. This information is at national not individual health board level, however, and is given in the following table:

The information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government, and should be requested from NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government, along with the rest of the UK, takes its advice on screening policy from the UK National Screening Committee (NSC). Following a review of the evidence in August 2019, the NSC does not currently recommend introduction of national screening.

The review found that it is not clear how well treatment works in people with atrial fibrillation (AF) found through screening or whether screening is better than the current approach.

The SAFER trial (currently ongoing in the UK) is starting to try to find out if screening is more effective than the current situation for people with AF. This will help the UK NSC understand more about the benefits and harms of screening.

sport scotland offer targeted health checks for cardiac issues to all Institute-nominated athletes via established questions, family history checks, examination and access to ECGs. Additional support and checks are directed to the facility based at Hampden Stadium if needed.

The Scottish Government and sport scotland will continue to work with the sporting sector and other partners, such as the Cardiac Research in the Young (CRY) and Scottish HART, to establish partnerships to discuss what steps can be taken forward in this area.

If NHS boards do not meet their hepatitis C treatment targets, there is a risk that Scotland as a whole will not reach the 2024 elimination target. Scottish Government officials are monitoring progress towards treatment targets in order to identify and address boards that may be at risk of failing to meet their targets.

Health Protection Scotland has advised that by treating a minimum of 2,500 people during 2019-20 and 3,000 people each year thereafter, we can eliminate hepatitis C in Scotland by 2024. Case finding and treatment will be guided by the recommendations of the Hepatitis C Case Finding and Access to Care report. The largest cost in delivering hepatitis C elimination is the price of medicines, which is subject to commercial confidentiality.

The Chief Executive of each board is ultimately responsible for all aspects of the performance of the board.