Chamber and committees

Scottish Government is maintaining its investment in the extensive programme of surveillance, monitoring, research, and rapid action to help slow down the spread and reduce the impact of Phytophthora ramorum on larch. Our surveillance programme has ensured early detection of new outbreaks, and rapid action via statutory measures.

Rapid action was taken by the Scottish Government through Forestry Commission Scotland to issue the required Statutory Plant Health Notices, focussing on those areas confirmed as having the disease furthest away from the focus of infection in the south of Scotland. Close liaison with Confor and the wider forestry sector, through the Scottish Tree Health Advisory Group and the P. ramorum Working Group, has been maintained to ensure that appropriate and proportionate management action continues to be implemented.

Continued research into this pathogen remains a priority for the Scottish Government, and will be continued as part of the future cross-border arrangements agreed as part of the programme of work to complete the devolution of forestry.

Police Scotland treats any incident involving the use of acid to attack another person with the utmost seriousness, and will keep each case under review as their investigations proceed.

The production of the National Statistics on police recorded crime is a matter for independent statisticians. At present, no existing legislation specifically criminalises the carrying of acid or other corrosives. As such, should acid or a corrosive be used to attack another person, this would be recorded as an assault but no data would be recorded that identified the specific use of an acid or other corrosive in the carrying out of the assault.

This situation is different from, for example, when a knife is used in an assault as there is a statutory offence of carrying a bladed article in a public place and so this can be recorded as an assault involving a knife linked back to the statutory offence of carrying a bladed article in a public place.

New offences relating to corrosives are contained in the Offensive Weapons Bill. This is a UK Government Bill and will, if approved in its current form, mean a new offence banning possession of a corrosive substance in a public place and a new offence banning the sale of certain corrosives to under 18s will both be introduced into Scots criminal law. The effect of the creation of these new offences will be to trigger new recording of corrosives offending, including where a corrosive is used in public to assault another person.

The Scottish Government has lodged a Legislative Consent Motion for this Bill which the Justice Committee has recently approved. This Bill is currently delayed at Westminster after being removed from scrutiny at Third Reading on two separate occasions in October. No new date for scrutiny has been set.

Beyond this new legislation, the Minister for Community Safety also updated Parliament on 20 September 2018 on work to further enhance our understanding of the non-sexual violence that takes place in Scotland. This will include a new report into the nature of serious assaults recorded by the police in 2017-18. It is planned that this report will be published in the spring of 2019 and will include an estimate of the proportion of these crimes that involve an acid or other corrosive substance.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) Register is the arrangement in operation for PADs already in place, in a variety of locations, to be mapped, maintained and accessible to the public. This enables SAS call handlers to direct a caller at the location of a cardiac arrest to a PAD when one is nearby. This meets a commitment in Scotland's Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy for Scotland.

In addition Scottish Ambulance Service is an early adopter site in the British Heart Foundation National Defibrillator Network project. This aims to map and locate every PAD in the UK on all ambulance service systems.

There are mobile device applications designed to facilitate bystander CPR and public access defibrillator use during cardiac arrests. An evaluation of these Apps to compare functionality, feasibility and potential benefit for cardiac arrest victims in Scotland is planned as part of Scotland's Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy.

As part of the Strategy, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) Register is the arrangement in operation for PADs already in place, in a variety of locations, to be mapped, maintained and accessible to the public. This enables SAS call handlers to direct a caller at the location of a cardiac arrest to a PAD when one is nearby.

The Scottish Government appreciates the contribution voluntary organisations, businesses and members of the public make by funding public access defibrillators in their local communities. Scottish Government is supporting improving the effectiveness of the use of public access defibrillators (PADs) under Scotland's Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy, but does not routinely provide funding for them.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) Register is the arrangement in operation for PADs already in place, in a variety of locations, to be mapped, maintained and accessible to the public. This enables SAS call handlers to direct a caller at the location of a cardiac arrest to a PAD when one is nearby. Support and advice is available from the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) to any council, community, organisation or business interested in all aspects of PADs.

The Scottish Government has funded The University of Edinburgh Resuscitation Research Group to carry out the PADs Modelling Analysis project, to inform advice on where PADs should be located, designed to facilitate bystander CPR and PAD use.

FreeStyle Libre is already available on prescription in 13 of the NHS Boards. NHS Highland is committed to introducing FreeStyle Libre to patients that meet the agreed criteria, and is working closely with the local Diabetes Service to identify and make the prescribing efficiencies necessary to release sufficient resource to meet the cost of FreeStyle Libre.

As with all Medicines and Devices on the Scottish Drugs Tariff, it is for NHS Boards to consider inclusion on their local formulary. The decision to prescribe a medicine or device is for the prescribing clinician in line with prescribing guidance and in consultation with the patient to ensure suitability for their treatment.

The number of medical staff employed by each NHS Board, by specialty, from 2007 to the most recent published data as at 30 June 2018, is available on the ISD website:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-09-04/Medical_Trend_J2018.xls (Consultant SIP tab)

This data shows four neurology related specialties: neurology, neurosurgery, clinical neurophysiology and diagnostic neuropathology (introduced December 2016).

Curriculum for Excellence is the national approach to learning and teaching for young people aged 3 to 18 in Scotland. It provides significant flexibility, within broad national guidelines, for teachers to develop lessons which best meet the needs of individual learners, such as lessons about acid attacks. Teachers, head teachers and other professional educational practitioners are best placed to decide what is taught in Scotland’s schools.

Through Curriculum for Excellence, education practitioners have an important role in equipping all children and young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to keep themselves and others safe.

As indicated by the First Minister, the Scottish Government will hold an open, inclusive and transparent national discussion around the issues related to Tourism Tax. This is not an official public consultation consulting on specific proposals from the Scottish Government or anyone else on introducing a Tourism Tax. It is a national discussion to aid wider understanding of this Contentions issue.

Through a series of roundtable discussions, and related engagement, we will allow all views to be heard and we will make the evidence that is gathered through that available in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all students with a disability, long term medical condition or additional support needs are fully supported throughout their studies.

This academic year, the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) has made a number of improvements to the application process for all students applying for Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA).

These include a new application form and evidence template aimed at making the DSA application process quicker and easier for students to complete.

SAAS are working with a range of representative groups, including the Heads of Disability Services within universities and colleges to explore what further improvements they can make to the services they provide for disabled students.