Chamber and committees

Statistics on the waiting times patients experience waiting for family genetic testing following a sudden arrhythmic death syndrome bereavement are not held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). PHS does not hold information on the conditions patients are waiting to be seen for.

Statistics relating to the waits patients experience for new outpatient appointments at specialty level are published up to 31 March 2021. These include waiting times for Clinical Genetics and Cardiology. These can be found at the following link: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment-quarter-ending-31-march-2021/ .

For clinical genetics, the median waiting time for patients seen during Jan-Mar ‘21 was 40 days.

Yes, the Scottish Ferry Services Plan (2013-2022) which will be replaced by the Islands Connectivity Plan at the end of 2022.

Scottish Ferry Services: Ferries Plan (2013-2022) (transport.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government does not collect data on suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the UK as this a statutory function of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The MHRA produces a weekly summary of Yellow Card reporting and includes other safety investigations carried out by the MHRA under the COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Strategy. On 1 July this report was updated to include new data up to 23 June 2021. The MHRA does not currently break down these data by treatment required at secondary or primary clinical care settings.

The number of suspected ADR reports received in the UK for COVID-19 vaccines up to and including 23 June were as follows:

Table 1

The main release to air from Scotch whisky maturation is the fugitive emission of ethanol, which disperses very quickly in the atmosphere and is not considered to be harmful to human health through this exposure route.

Whilst emissions from maturation of Scotch whisky are not subject to regulation under the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2012, SEPA works with regulated business through sector plans to help drive improvement and reduce emissions across environmental media.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulator has approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be given in Scotland, and across the UK. This vaccine also complies with European Medicines Agency requirements and is shown on the record of vaccination as Vaxzevria - EU/1/21/1529.

Individuals travelling abroad will still need to meet the requirements for their destination country when travelling. For example, a negative pre-departure test etc. if stipulated by the respective country.

Emissions from casking, distillation, fermentation, other maturation and spent grain drying are not disaggregated by spirit type, due to the very low levels involved. Collectively for all spirit manufacture in Scotland, these processes contributed approximately 3% of NMVOC emissions in 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Overall NMVOC emissions in Scotland have declined by approximately 65% since 1990.

Approximately 45% of NMVOC emissions in Scotland were due to emissions from Scotch whisky maturation in 2018.

This information is also publicly available in the report 'Air Quality Pollutant Inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: 1990-2018' and the associated tables, which can be found at: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/2010220959_DA_Air_Pollutant_Inventories_1990-2018_v1.2.pdf .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament

Recorded Police Warnings are an alternative disposal option that are available to police officers that allow them to deal more quickly and efficiently with a range of offences which already commonly result in non-court disposals, including for small quantities of specified controlled drugs. The types of crime covered by the Recorded Police Warning scheme are a matter for the Lord Advocate as part of her independent role as head of the system of prosecution therefore it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on this.

The Scottish Government, through its agency Scottish Forestry, issued new cultivation guidance on 27 July based on research evidence regarding carbon released as a result of different cultivation techniques.

The guidance can found at: https://forestry.gov.scot/publications/1032-cultivation-for-upland-productive-woodland-creation-sites-applicant-s-guidance/viewdocument/1032 .

The most recent long COVID statistics published by the Office for National Statistics on 1 July 2021 state that, over the four-week period ending 6 June 2021, an estimated 962,000 people living in private households in the UK reported experiencing long COVID (symptoms persisting more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) episode that are not explained by something else). Of those people, an estimated 81,000 lived in Scotland. Detailed estimates by age are available for the UK at Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) .This detail is not available for Scotland.

We do not currently have for Scotland a breakdown of people experiencing symptoms of long COVID by age, or according to whether or not they were originally hospitalised due to the virus. We are working with the EAVE II project, on which the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland collaborate. Funded by the Medical Research Council, this project used pseudonymised GP and other patient data to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland. This dataset is now being used in a separate project funded by the Chief Scientist Office to investigate long COVID, and will generate analysis of people assessed as having long COVID. Early results will be available later in 2021.