Chamber and committees

The expansion and retention of our specialist genomic workforce is an important part of the Scottish Government’s genomic medicine strategy and is critical to the delivery of both diagnosis and treatment across the NHS.

The Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine is working to capture not only our current workforce needs but those of our future service as we move towards an expansion in testing.

In doing so, we are working closely with NHS Education Scotland, our partners across the UK and national networks, acknowledging the many interdependencies between genomics, pathology and radiology in delivering diagnostic information needed by clinicians.

Equitable and consistent access to appropriate and timely diagnostic services and expertise are core requirements within the NICE NG47 guidelines cited within the recent Blood Cancer UK Action Plan.

We are aware of a gap analysis carried out by the Haematology and Transfusion Scotland and Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine networks on the genomic testing needed in Scotland, and we are working to address this as part of the overall implementation of the Genomics in Scotland strategy.

Work is also underway to better support integrated diagnostic reporting through the development of a national Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) in a programme of work led by a consortium of NHS Boards.

The reply to the 2024 PQ S6W-30359 was interpreted as seeking cost information for the Digital Waste Tracking project. The Electronic Duty of Care (edoc) system was a wholly separate project to the ongoing “Digital Waste Tracking” project. As such, edoc was not referred to in the response to PQ S6W-30359 on 16 October 2024.

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

The anticipated full year spend (12 months from opening, not the financial year) is £2.3 million. This funding is largely to cover the staffing of the facility. Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership have funded the building works and furnishings.

The Scottish Government is aware of the impact that branch closures are having on people in Scotland, particularly in rural areas and our island communities.

We know that some people are waiting too long for treatment, and we remain determined to provide the necessary support to drive improvements in waiting times. Across NHS Scotland, patients who require urgent care continue to be prioritised across services.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde have confirmed the average waiting time for an urgent neurology new outpatient appointment at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) is currently 20 weeks, however there are a small number of patients whose waiting time will be markedly longer than average due to an upgrade of their status from routine to urgent.

The Board have recruited additional consultants to the service which will deliver additional capacity at the QEUH site for general Neurology waits. They have also implemented Patient Focused Booking (PFB) into Neurology services to ensure optimum use of outpatient capacity and additional headache slots are being supported by GPs with special interest (GPSI), helping to free-up the consultant team to focus on general neurology longest waits.

More widely, NHS Scotland’s Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has developed a strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG) for Neurology which promotes multidisciplinary team working, and supports local adoption of service improvement programmes. The Neurology SDG has strong links with the National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions and includes third sector representation. The group has made considerable progress implementing Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) pathways and Discharge Patient Initiated Review (PIR), helping to free-up capacity across NHS Scotland and support sustainable solutions for the future.

As part of the Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-26, Scottish Government committed to “Invest in improving the pathways of less survivable cancers, particularly hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. This will shorten the time to staging and agreeing treatment options.”

Scottish Government invested in a pilot Scottish Care and Coordination Service for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Cancers (SCOT HPB) as a potential way to achieve this action. Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) to review the pilot to consider lessons learned and potential options for future delivery.

Following this and further expert engagement, we are considering how best to continue to improve patient pathways for those with Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers in an equitable, evidenced and sustainable way.

The Scottish Government has received representations on the principle of making eligibility for business rates reliefs and licences to trade conditional on payment of the real Living Wage from a range of stakeholders, including retail representative bodies like the Scottish Retail Consortium, Scottish Grocers Federation and Association of Convenience Stores. Forums such as the New Deal for Business Non-Domestic Rates Subgroup, Retail Industry Leadership Group, Scottish Ratepayers Forum also provide a routine opportunity for stakeholders to make representations to Scottish Government.

The recently published Fair Work Convention Inquiry into the hospitality industry also made recommendations for the Scottish Government on fair work conditionality. The Scottish Government will undertake a programme of assessment and consider each of the recommendations carefully.

Our Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls (VAWG) emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place.

Our Equally Safe at School (ESAS) project, developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance, applies a whole school approach to inequality and gender-based violence in schools. Rape Crisis Scotland have reported that currently 116 schools are registered with an ESAS account.

The Scottish Government also funds and supports other education-based programmes and initiatives aimed at tackling violence against women and girls and the attitudes which perpetuate it such as Mentors in Violence peer education programme, the preventing and responding to gender based violence: a whole school framework, Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning and Rape Crisis Scotland’s national sexual violence programme for secondary schools.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. These are operational matters for Police Scotland and local authorities.

The Scottish Government has ongoing dialogue with a range of partners regarding implementation of the new safeguards on XL Bully dogs.

My officials are continuing to engage with Police Scotland, local authorities, Scottish SPCA and other key dog welfare stakeholders about the impact of enforcing and implementation of the new safeguards, including ongoing consideration of kennelling provision and demand.