Chamber and committees

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are currently undertaking formal public consultation on their proposals concerning rehabilitation services for the elderly in North East Glasgow, including Lightburn Hospital. The Government would encourage all local stakeholders to register their views with the board before the end of the public consultation, scheduled for 8 May 2017.

In due course the board will formally consider the proposals, as informed by the responses to the public consultation. Should the board then proceed with the proposals they will be subject to Ministerial approval, in line with the well-established national guidance on major service change in the NHS.

The Scottish Government welcomes the increase (to 16.1% 2015-16) in the proportion of entrants to higher education from the 20% most deprived areas. However, the variation in performance on access between colleges and universities, and across universities, is an issue we are determined to address. Even within the 8% figure we know that there is considerable variation, with other published sources consistently placing Glasgow well above the other three institutions mentioned.

Ensuring that a child born in any Scottish community can consider accessing a university education was the reason why we established the Commission on Widening Access, and we have committed to implementing its recommendations in full. This includes the target to ensure that by 2030, students from the 20% most deprived areas should represent 20% of full-time first degree entrants to university; as well as the target that by 2021, students from the 20% most deprived areas should represent at least 10% of full-time first degree entrants to every individual university.

The Scottish Government has invested £133 million since 2013-14 in additional widening access and articulation places to act as a catalyst for accelerated progress. All additional places funded since 2013-14 are being embedded in the core funding for universities. This means that more than £51 million is invested each year to support approximately 7,000 places.

The Scottish Government recognises that universities are autonomous institutions, each with its own responsibility for student recruitment and admissions policy. Beyond investment in places, it is the duty of the whole education system and policymakers to take forward the actions that will ensure the Commission’s principal target is met. We accept universities cannot do this alone, and we expect the Commissioner for Fair Access to challenge everyone to play a full part.

On 27 February, the SPA Chair and Chief Constable launched their ten year “Policing 2026” Strategy for consultation. It sets out how the SPA and Police Scotland intend to address new and emerging demands on policing by transforming the service’s approach across a number of areas including corporate support, public contact and engagement, partnership working, use of digital technology and response to developing challenges such as cyber-crime.

Identifying staff with the expertise to deliver the transformational change envisaged in the Strategy is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland.

In recent years 140 extra carriages have been introduced to the ScotRail fleet with an extra 200 to follow in the next 30 months. This will deliver more than 50% extra carriages since 2007. The ScotRail franchisee will deliver major enhancements to train facilities and increase seating capacity by 23% by 2019 to support growth in our railways.

Bullying of any form is entirely unacceptable and we need to be vigilant in challenging any racist and abusive behaviour in our schools. We want all children and young people to learn tolerance, respect, equality and good citizenship to address and prevent prejudice. In March 2016, we published the Race Equality Framework for Scotland, and are taking forward a number of actions to ensure that minority ethnic pupils have confidence in, and are effectively supported by, approaches in schools to prevent and respond to prejudice-based bullying and racist behaviour or incidents.

In addition, we funded 'Show Racism the Red Card' (Scotland) £50,000 in 2016-17 to deliver a programme of anti-racism education to young people in Scottish schools.

All schools and local authorities should have anti-bullying policies in place. The Scottish Government agreed to a request from the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee for further engagement on the development of the Government’s refreshed anti-bullying guidance with a range of stakeholders. This revised guidance will be clear that all types of bullying, including prejudice-based bullying is unacceptable and must be addressed whenever and wherever it arises.

To support a proactive approach to addressing bullying, the Scottish Government fully funds respectme, Scotland’s anti-bullying service to provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people to build confidence and capacity to address all types of bullying effectively.

The Scottish Government has also been working across government and with key stakeholders to update our action plan on child internet safety to ensure we have appropriate frameworks of training, support and information in place for professionals and families, including children and young people. The updated action plan will be published in April 2017.

The redevelopment of Queen Street Station continues to make progress with the introduction of 7-car electric services from December 2017 and 8-car electric services with improved journey times from December 2018 on schedule.

Further progress was made on 31 March 2017 with Scottish Ministers approval of the Transport and Works Scotland Order application for the station redevelopment. This grants Network Rail the necessary powers to proceed with the works and develop a programme to take the station forward to completion.

We continue to support NHS boards to ensure patients have access to the care they need via, for example, the work of the Ministerial Steering Group and the planned National Advisory Committee on Chronic Pain. National Advisory remit will include guiding the improvement of chronic pain management at all levels of health and social care and will inform effective policy development.

The Scottish Government provides help to support the private building industry in a number of ways, including direct support through Infrastructure funding, the ongoing Planning review, as well as support for demand through the Help to Buy (Scotland) Affordable New Build schemes and our LIFT shared equity schemes for low-income and first time buyers.

I was also pleased to provide further support on Friday 31 March 2017 by announcing the retention of a higher £200,000 price ceiling for the Help to Buy (Scotland) Affordable New Build schemes for 2018-19.

In addition, we meet regularly with industry at official and Ministerial level to consider structural and emerging challenges.

Patients and the public deserve to have complete confidence in the cleanliness of Scottish hospitals and the quality of NHS services. That is why we have introduced these inspections as one of a range of measures to tackle healthcare associated infections. I have made clear my expectation that all health boards across Scotland must make cleanliness and infection control a priority.

Clearly this was a disappointing report and fell short of the required standards of environmental cleanliness and the state of patient equipment. I recently met with the board's chair and incoming Chief Executive to set out my concerns with the report's findings and made it very clear that I expect these to be addressed as a priority.

I have been personally reassured that the board are addressing the issues identified and they have an action plan in place to drive forward improvements. The board have also requested support from Health Protection Scotland to assist this process.

Addressing social isolation and loneliness is key to improving wellbeing and supporting people of all ages to participate in their community. That is why we created a £500,000 Social Isolation and Loneliness Fund (2016-17) to support 36 community-based projects tackling social isolation and its impact. We have also supported projects that tackle these issues through our Equality Budget (£20.3m) and Empowering Communities Fund (£20m).

We are developing a National Strategy to ensure a holistic approach across government to problems of loneliness and isolation, and we are engaging with partners and a wide range of interests in the development of this.