Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises that many different groups experience loneliness and social isolation, and that the most vulnerable in society are often more likely to be affected. The national strategy to tackle social isolation & loneliness which we will publish for consultation in the new year will look to provide for a more comprehensive, community level approach to this issue.

The Scottish Government offers a range of support to vulnerable groups, with our £500,000 social isolation and loneliness fund helping 36 local organisations tackle social isolation and loneliness within their communities. We continue to support the work of the Men’s Sheds Association and the Age Scotland helpline, and the First Minister has given her support to the 1 million minutes campaign which seeks to encourage people to volunteer a small amount of their time over the festive period to help someone who is feeling lonely.

The Scottish Government produces an online guide for students ‘Supporting You at University: A guide for people with additional support needs in Scotland’s universities’. This contains contact details for the National Autistic Society Scotland who can advise and support both students, and those staff working with them in universities.

While the Scottish Government does not publish specific national guidelines on supporting students with autism at university, universities are able to access specialist support and advice from the National Autistic Society Scotland to assist them in supporting students.

Universities receive additional funding from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), in the form of the Disabled Students Premium, which enables them to make their institution and course provision more inclusive through reasonable adjustments for students with additional needs. A total of £2.8m funding was allocated to universities in academic year 2017-18. In addition students with autism are eligible to apply for the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA). DSA is a non-income assessed allowance to cover any extra costs or expenses a student might have while studying, which arise because of their disability or learning difficulty. In 2016-17, £7.85m of support was provided to students through DSA.

The Scottish Strategy for Autism (published 2011) outlined recommendations to ensure that progress is made across Scotland in delivering quality services for people with autism and their families and since the publication of the strategy, we have invested over £13.4 million to support and deliver quality services for people with autism and their families. Work is underway to refresh the strategy for the period 2018-2021, and the refreshed outcomes will be published in early 2018.

The estimates for low carbon and renewable energy jobs in Scotland are not published by the Scottish Government, they are compiled and published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in their UK Environmental Accounts: Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey. The dataset and methodology, including breakdown by sector and technology, are available on the ONS website. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/finalestimates/2015results

This is information is not held centrally.

Scottish Government expects such therapies and treatments to be provided in line with clinically prescribed timescales. It is the responsibility of NHS Grampian to investigate and resolve any issues with regards to access to particular services.

The Scottish Government does not hold official estimates of current and projected spend on stroke in NHS Scotland. The allocation of spend is determined by territorial Health Boards and where appropriate, Integrated Joint Boards.

Our Health and Social Care Delivery Plan published in December 2016 sets out our aim to provide Scotland with high quality services with a focus on prevention, early intervention and supported self-management. Our programme of health and social care integration aims to ensure that those who use services get the right care and support whatever their needs, at any point in their care journey.

The plan sits alongside our National Clinical Strategy, which evidenced the need to change the way services are delivered in order to continue to meet the healthcare needs of our population, setting out the framework for developing health services in Scotland for the next 10-20 years, including stroke care.

Our Stroke Improvement Plan (2014) sets out a comprehensive programme for further reducing the number of deaths from stroke and improving stroke treatment care across the whole patient pathway. This includes Priority 7; Transition to the Community and Priority 8; Supported Self-Management and Living with Stroke that encompasses rehabilitation.

Scotland's approach continues to be to promote best clinical practice based on current evidence as outlined by Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines including SIGN guidelines 108; Management of Patients with Stroke or TIA and 118; Management of Patients with Stroke: Rehabilitation, prevention and management of complications, and discharge planning.

Our Stroke Improvement Plan (2014) sets out a comprehensive programme for further reducing the number of deaths from stroke and improving stroke treatment care.

The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the National Institute for Health and Care are Excellence (NICE) make recommendations based on best available evidence and recommend use of intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) to reduce the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in immobile stroke patients. For these reasons, the appropriate provision of IPC was recognised within Priority 3 of the Scottish Government's Stroke Improvement Plan.

Since 2014, the Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) has been collecting and reporting information on the use of IPC in stroke units to monitor the proportion of patients who are unable to walk on admission who are offered IPC. In 2016, the number of people offered IPC was 43%, a significant increase from the 2015 figure of 30%.

However, it is recognised that there remains variation across Scotland and through the Scottish Stroke Care Improvement Programme we are encouraging local Quality Improvement projects to optimise the use of IPC in stroke units and several national workshops have been run to encourage appropriate use of IPC.

All stroke units in Scotland have access to the equipment and on line training in its use is available through the Stroke Training and Awareness Resources (STARS) website;(www.stroketraining.org).

The decision to locate the Social Security Agency’s central functions in Dundee and Glasgow was taken following the completion of a detailed and robust analytical exercise. The exercise methodology - which followed a multi-criteria analysis approach - and the results have been published and can be accessed by following the following link: https://beta.gov.scot/publications/central-functions-social-security-agency-location-analysis-phase-1-phase/.

As the report highlights, the suitability of each local authority area for agency’s central functions was considered against a number of factors, including the ability to recruit a sufficient number of staff and within the timescale required to ensure delivery of the 11 benefits with the lifetime of this parliament, scope to contribute to inclusive growth, opportunities for regeneration, and the role that the location could enable the central functions to play in the local delivery.

The Scottish Health Protection Network (SHPN), comprising Health Protection Scotland (HPS) and all the NHS Health Boards, as well as Local Authorities and other agencies with a responsibility for public health, formed a Lyme disease group as a subgroup of the Gastrointestinal Infections and Zoonoses (GIZ) group at the beginning of 2016. The group has produced new public-facing materials, in the form of an information leaflet and an infographic poster, explaining the risks from ticks and tick borne diseases and highlighting simple steps people can take to avoid infection. The group has also launched the Outdoor bugs and germs pages on NHS Inform (https://www.nhsinform.scot/bugs-and-germs), bringing together in once place, for the first time, comprehensive advice on how to avoid infection from bugs and germs. Scottish Government officials, along with members of the SHPN GIZ group are currently planning greater and sustained promotion of these materials commencing in Spring 2018.

Lyme disease has also featured on the programme of the NHS Health Protection Symposium held in December 2016, which was open to all members of the SHPN, and the symposium was attended by a group of individuals from different sectors and regions of Scotland. Through February and March, evening meetings for Community Pharmacy Groups featuring Lyme disease were presented by members of the group in 5 Health Boards and in August 2017, a Lyme disease one-day symposium was held in Benbecula, organised by the local Health Protection team in partnership with SHPN.

The ongoing work of the group seeks to improve surveillance of Lyme disease in Scotland. This will give us a better estimate of the burden of disease and the impact of our efforts to raise awareness about its avoidance.