Chamber and committees

Community bodies receive support to request an asset transfer under Part 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 from a range of sources. The Scottish Government provides support for community bodies by funding the Community Ownership Support Service (COSS), who support community based groups in Scotland take a stake in or ownership of previously publicly owned land or buildings.

Since 2017 COSS have worked with 688 community bodies considering their options for taking on land or buildings including by asset transfer. COSS has supported 92 asset transfers and have a further 380 ongoing cases. They also provide advice to relevant authorities on all aspects of the asset transfer process and their adviser led service is free to access.

From the most recent annual data available since the Act came into force on 23 January 2017 to 31 March 2022, community bodies have made 352 asset transfer applications.

The Single Building assessment process has started for the 27 buildings in the original pilot. The pilot has been extended to 105 building. As the programme continues we expect further buildings to be identified and assessed. As we survey and undertake these further assessments we will have clearer information on the time-frame for the completion of all surveys on buildings with potentially unsafe cladding.

In response to the report, the Scottish Government established a Health and Social Care in Prisons Programme to address structural barriers to better health and social care in prisons across a number of areas. The Programme was unavoidably disrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic but nevertheless managed to make a range of improvements including refreshing the National Prison Care Network. This Network has established strong links with healthcare staff in prisons and is delivering improvements around a number of priority areas such as mental health, substance use, and workforce. Other key achievements from the Programme include:

• publishing a suite of externally commissioned prison population health and social care needs assessments;
• developing a prisons health information dashboard through Public Health Scotland;
• completing a review of clinical IT in prisons; and
• carrying out six tests of change which modelled ways of delivering integrated health and social care in prisons.

Much of this work continues to inform ongoing improvements to health and social care in prisons.

We are considering workforce as one of the key pillars in our new cancer strategy, which we anticipate will be published in spring this year. The cancer strategy will align with the Health and Social Care: National Workforce Strategy, published in 2022.

A public consultation was held early on in the process of developing the new strategy, which included engagement with professionals working in cancer services.

Scottish Government does not hold this data. Anyone not registered with a GP and resident in temporary accommodation, can be treated as a temporary patient at a General Practice for the first 3 months, maintaining access to healthcare. After this time they are able to register as a patient. Accommodation type does not affect eligibility to access Primary Medical Care.

The information requested on how many people have been employed in cancer diagnostic and treatment services in each NHS board in each year since 1999 is not held by the Scottish Government. Healthcare professionals involved in diagnostics and treatment are not always exclusively dedicated to one disease group such as cancer.

Information on staff in post from 2012 onwards, broken down by NHS Board, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The Scottish Government does not collect this information centrally. However, I can advise that anyone who is a resident in temporary accommodation can be treated as a temporary patient at a General Practice for the first 3 months, maintaining access to healthcare and therefore CAMHS referrals. After this time, they are able to register as a patient. Accommodation type does not affect eligibility to access care.

This information is not held centrally.

Scottish Government has funded Modernising Patient Pathways Programme (MPPP) which has a specific workstream continuing to promote improvements in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) care for patients across Scotland in partnership with third-sector and people with lived experience. Scotland’s national IBD Steering Group has identified priority areas for work over the next two years. This includes consideration of referral pathways and models of IBD care to drive a more standardised and equitable service across Scotland.

The information requested is not held centrally and is a matter for Public Health Scotland.