Chamber and committees

As in the answer to question S5W-02149 on 8 September 2016, the Scottish Government welcomes this report from the Scottish Youth Parliament, and will carefully review the recommendations that are for us. We will consider these as part of our public engagement on the next Mental Health Strategy.

During that public engagement, we have worked closely with the Scottish Youth Parliament to ensure that young people have the opportunity to contribute their views on matters that affect them. We have found the SYP’s work, including a discussion day event on 19 March, hugely valuable in ensuring we have the views of a cross-section of young people in Scotland on mental health issues.

Other recommendations have been made in the SYP's report for organisations such as Education Scotland, NHS Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland. Those recommendations are for the organisations concerned to consider.

Following our careful consideration of the views we have received, the new Mental Health Strategy will be published in late 2016.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

We take the mental health and wellbeing of our young people very seriously.

NHS boards have put a lot of effort into reducing waiting times for access to psychological therapies and to child and adolescent mental health services and the government is committed to supporting boards to meet their access targets with a funding for a comprehensive programme of improvement.

We want to continue to improve access to mental health services and have announced an additional £150 million for mental health services over five years. The funding will be partly used to further improve child and adolescent mental health services, help to bring down waiting times and deliver sustainable improvement to services.

Our next mental health strategy will be published later in 2016, and will include a focus on prevention and early intervention, particularly for children and young people.

We continue to support NSPCC and their Childline service. In 2016-17 we provided £198,000 to Childline aimed at increasing switchboard cover, offering a more interactive service during busy times and making improvements to the website. A further £100,000 was provided in 2016-17 to NSPCC for the ‘Improving Parenting, Improving Practice’ programme.

Every school has a named contact in specialist children and adolescent mental health service services who can be contacted for advice if they have any concerns about a pupil and can provide ongoing support.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

The reduction in violence amongst prisoners remains an on-going priority for the SPS. Attempts to prevent violence are reviewed through the analysis and assessment of emerging trends across the prison estate which in turn, supports the SPS Violence Reduction Strategy.

The Strategy contains a number of physical security counter measures which includes the use of body scanners, cell sense detectors and mobile phone signal denial technology. These measures are used in addition to officer searching, dog unit tactical searches, intelligence gathering and joint operations with Police Scotland. These operations can be proactive by using intelligence to prevent violence or post incident to enable investigation or analysis of an event. Case conferencing is also used to prevent bullying alongside family conferencing and victim support which are integral in SPS’ approach to reducing violent incidents.

All staff are also provided with appropriate training in order to detect, deter, de-escalate and, if necessary, protect themselves, prisoners and others from violent acts. Operational Staff are trained in Control and Restraint techniques which are a recognised safe system of work designed to enable staff to manage violent situations in an appropriate manner where intervention is necessary. Staff will wherever possible use communication skills and other non-physical techniques to gain the co-operation of prisoners in an attempt to de-escalate a situation.

As part of our commitment to ensuring policies, processes and procedures reflect best practice and support Scottish Government’s commitment to creating a safer and stronger Scotland, the existing SPS Violence Reduction Policy is currently under review; the policy will be fully refreshed and implemented nationally by the end of 2016. Further reviews will take place bi-annually thereafter.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-01436 on 9 August 2016. All answers to 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 Scottish Government has done no specific work to assess the costs of periods to women and girls. However there are undoubtedly genuine costs for women and girls associated with feminine hygiene and over an entire lifetime these could be significant.Feminine hygiene is not a health issue. Menstruation is normal. Where it becomes abnormal – excessive or infrequent – and potentially does become a health issue, treatments exist to help with this.While there is undoubtedly embarrassment and taboo about periods, we are not aware of any research evidence identifying particular stigma in relation to periods in Scotland.The Government currently has no plans to introduce free access to feminine hygiene products. However, we have invested in a range of other services to support people on low income or facing an acute income crisis. This includes the £33 million a year Scottish Welfare Fund which provides a safety net for vulnerable people on low incomes; investment in a range of advice services specifically designed to maximise income, support the transition on to new benefits, support lone parents and tackle unmet debt and financial capability; and our £1 million a year Fair Food Fund which will support community projects that help people access affordable food and develop skills, confidence and social networks.We are aware that food banks in Scotland will often provide sanitary products, usually as part of a broader offer of other personal hygiene products such as nappies or soap.

It is not possible to centrally quantify the number or contribution of nurses across Scotland that are involved in the provision of care to asthma patients.Asthma care services are delivered in a variety of settings in both primary and secondary care, and nurses involved in the delivery of those services may be directly employed either by NHSScotland or by general practices.Furthermore, nurses can be involved in delivering specialist care either wholly or as part of their role. Whilst some GP practices employ a dedicated asthma nurse, in others this function is covered by the practice nurse. In a hospital setting, patients may be seen by an asthma nurse or a specialist respiratory nurse.

The Hamilton Business Improvement District (BID) has received £75,525 in funding from the Scottish Government. This consists of:

A BID Seedcorn Development Grant of £20,000 in 2011 to develop the BID’s business proposal and prepare it for ballot.

Funding from Zero Waste Scotland of £35,000 in 2013 to fund a project manager to oversee a waste and recycling project aimed at ensuring businesses in Hamilton had the opportunity to recycle as much of their recyclable materials as possible from their premises as well as help them save money and ensure compliance with the new Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.

Funding from the Town Centre Communities Capital Fund of £20,525 in 2015 to enable the BID to install town centre Wi-Fi infrastructure and associated software.

We continue to support the development and growth of BIDS through our contract with Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) Scotland. We encourage all operational BIDS to engage the services of BIDS Scotland to discuss local challenges to help identify further support available.

The Scottish Government continues to fund Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP) to
co-ordinate learning and share good practice on town centre activity in Scotland. STP have agreed to meet with Hamilton’s Community Planning Partnership along with Architecture and Design Scotland to discuss how to progress Hamilton’s town centre regeneration strategy.