Chamber and committees

Scotland has led the UK by setting a minimum standard for hospital food. The catering service in every Board must comply with National Food Safety Standards and the Food in Hospitals specification (the National Catering and Nutrition Specification for Food and Fluid Provision in Hospitals in Scotland, first published in 2008) with regards to the quality of their patient catering service.

All NHS boards are required to meet and monitor performance against these standards – which includes seeking and taking in to account patient feedback. Additionally, from this April, all NHS boards will be required to set out the steps they are taking to achieve compliance with these food standards, by providing documented evidence to support their views.

We know that before 12 weeks, one in 5 pregnancies ends in miscarriage and that most of these are due to chromosomal abnormalities which cannot be prevented.

Recurrent miscarriage (defined as three or more miscarriages) happens to one in every hundred women and the chance of finding a cause which can be treated is much higher. The balance is in not exposing a lot of women to unnecessary tests but to identifying women where problems which can be treated are more likely to be picked up.

We are open to new findings through research which can help us understand further the causes and potential treatment of miscarriage.

In 2018, Scottish Government announced an additional £300,000 for the Scottish Donor Milk Bank, over three years, to increase access to safe donor milk for high risk premature and sick babies across the whole of Scotland.

Informal sharing of breastmilk via internet support networks and social media groups may present a significant health risk to infants. Scottish Government advice is that healthcare professionals should discourage mothers considering donating or receiving breastmilk for their infants through these networks.

Our Count14 campaign, launched on 11 March, is running for three weeks across TV, print, radio and digital platforms, to raise awareness of the UK Chief Medical Officers’ lower risk maximum drinking guidelines of 14 units of alcohol per week. This first phase of awareness raising work will be followed by further activity in 2019.

Our messaging has been developed to clearly demonstrate what 14 units means in terms of common alcoholic drinks, and to encourage people to think about how their weekly drinking adds up. It also highlights that if you regularly drink around 14 units per week, it’s best to spread these units over three days or more, with some alcohol free days in between. Drinking within the guidelines keeps our risk of certain diseases, including bowel, breast and mouth cancer, low.

The campaign webpage is available at count14.scot .

The campaign is taking place under Action 14 of the new Alcohol Framework, launched in 2018 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/alcohol-framework-2018-preventing-harm-next-steps-changing-relationship-alcohol ). I welcome the cross-party support for the Framework as a whole, and for this Action in particular.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

An annual programme of planned maintenance ensures that all exterior surfaces of the building are kept clean.  Additional reactive cleaning and removal of pigeon droppings is also carried out where necessary.

Planning authorities publish on an annual basis a Planning Performance Framework Report which includes information about staff resource.

Authorities submit their reports to the Scottish Government and we assess them against the 15 Key Performance Markers developed by the High Level Group on Planning Performance and feedback is provided to assist improvement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-21921 on 20 March 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The answer to this question is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 60526).

General Practice Specialty Training (GPST) is based on the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) curriculum which is the educational framework that defines and sets the standards for independent general practice The RCGP curriculum is approved by the GMC and any changes made to the curriculum require GMC approval. All components of the assessment system must be successfully completed before a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) can be awarded.

General Practice Specialty Trainees (GPST) undergo high quality training and education which enables them to fulfil and pass all requirements specified within the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) curriculum which is approved and overseen by the GMC as regulator for the profession.

GPSTs also gain considerable experience in managing and learning about child health problems in the GP practice setting where a high proportion of consultations are with children or concerning child health issues. GPSTs will also receive training in the GP out of hours setting where child consultations are common. Regular teaching on child health takes place in the practice setting and via educational release teaching. Both NHS Education for Scotland & the SG facilitate and fund additional learning opportunities for GPs; the SG is funding an enhanced Paediatric GP training fellowship initiative in NHS Grampian and will evaluate the results over 2019.