Chamber and committees

As at March 2022, a total of 260 WTE Mental Health workers have been recruited through the Primary Care Improvement Fund. This data was published on 21 June 2022 - ( Primary Care Improvement Plans: Summary of Implementation Progress at March 2022 ).

Public Health Scotland published the Melanoma Quality Performance Indicators report on 7th June. It can be found here: Melanoma Cancer Quality Performance Indicators - Patients diagnosed between July 2018 and June 2021 - Melanoma Cancer Quality Performance Indicators - Publications - Public Health Scotland .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09214 on 28 June 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

In March 2021, we published our Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland, setting out our commitments to drive improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions such as bronchiectasis.

We recognise the importance of data in understanding respiratory care in Scotland. Our Plan contains a key commitment to build a core respiratory data set, which will enable the Scottish Government, NHS Boards and clinicians to identify improvements needed in delivery of respiratory care and also monitor how the implementation of our Plan is delivering better outcomes for people in Scotland.

At its first meeting in October, the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee (SRAC) identified data as one of the 3 key priorities for year 1 of implementation.

We have since established a sub-group consisting of clinical experts representing health boards across Scotland, Public Health Scotland and third sector representation to progress and deliver this commitment. The sub-group have held their first meeting and are in the process of commencing a scoping exercise on the data currently available across Scotland, before determining what data should be collected in the future in order to improve respiratory care.

The information requested is not held centrally.

NHS Boards do not currently collate numbers of bronchiectasis diagnoses over and above the usual coding of patients that happens as standard at local level. We do recognise the importance of data in understanding and improving respiratory care in Scotland, and improving access to respiratory data is a key commitment in our Respiratory Care Action Plan. One of the three priority areas for year 1 of the Plan’s implementation is data and a sub-group has recently been established to progress this commitment. The first task for this group will be to determine what data should be collected in order to improve respiratory care. This will include consideration of which individual conditions would benefit from additional data collection.

In 2019-2020 the Scottish Government spent £15,849,263.61 in 2020 (1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020) and £11,106,352.64 in 2020/21 (1 April 2020 – 31 March 2021) on the maintenance of the Forth Road Bridge.

Responsibility for the recruitment of CAMHS staff lies with NHS Boards. In the NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026 , the Scottish Government committed to provide sufficient funding for around 320 additional staff in CAMHS over the next 5 years, with the potential to increase capacity for CAMHS cases by over 10,000.

The additional funding for CAMHS from the Scottish Government’s Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund is designed to provide sufficient support for Boards to increase capacity, reduce long waiting lists and improve CAMHS services. The delivery expected includes implementation of the National CAMHS Service Specification, increasing age range for CAMHS services from 18 to 25, and clearing waiting list backlogs by March 2023.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) publishes quarterly statistics on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce . The most recent publication on 7 June 2022 shows data from quarter ending 31 March 2022. These statistics show, as of 31 March 2022, there were 1172 whole time equivalent (WTE) CAMHS staff employed. This compares to 1078 WTE CAMHS staff employed in March 2021, prior to the 2021-22 additional investment of around £40 million to CAMHS from the Scottish Government’s Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund. Therefore, following investment in 2021-22, the CAMHS workforce increased by 94 WTE in 2021-22. Specifically, in the final quarter of 2021-22, the CAMHS workforce increased by 73 WTE.

The Scottish Government remain committed to meeting the standard that 90% of patients start treatment for CAMHS and Psychological Therapies within 18 weeks of referral by March 2023.

There have been obvious operational difficulties caused by Covid-19 and the restrictions necessarily put in place over the pandemic. However, latest statistics for both CAMHS and Psychological Therapies (PT) published on 7 June 2022, Publications - Public Health Scotland , for the latest quarter ending 31 March 2022 show that there has seen an all-time high number of children and young people beginning treatment for CAMHS. It is also the highest number of children beginning treatment within 18 weeks under this measure since quarter ending June 2016. It is also encouraging to see significant progress with Psychological Therapies waiting times with a significant decrease in long waits over one year and a decrease for those waiting over 18 weeks.

This reflects the effects of the Scottish Government’s improvement work with Health Boards and the additional investment – which is growing the workforce and reducing backlogs resulting in shorter waiting times and a better experience for individuals and families supported by our NHS.

We are working with Boards closely and will continue to monitor their performance against the waiting times standard.

The date of March 2023 was chosen to drive progress with NHS Health Boards, reflecting the importance of reducing waiting times and meeting the standard that 90% of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral, while also recognising the operational challenges that Boards have faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This date was chosen as a challenging target, based on regular engagements with Boards and evidence on performance, published on a regular basis by Public Health Scotland - Publications - Public Health Scotland .

We are working with Boards closely and will continue to monitor their performance against the waiting times standard.