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The Scottish Government invited Health Boards to submit requests for hot food appliances required to support resident doctors in late 2022. In February 2023, invitations were closed and Scottish Government provided funding to responding Health Boards to enable purchase of approximately 55 appliances, including kettles, microwaves, fridges and toasters. This was a one-time provision to support staff facilities. Scottish Government cannot confirm how quickly these were purchased by the participating Health Boards.

It remains the responsibility of individual Health Boards to manage their facilities to ensure they meet staff needs. NHS employers should take steps to provide staff with access to nutritious hot food and out-of-hours catering wherever possible.

The Scottish Government continues to work with stakeholders to consider further initiatives across health, social care and social work to enhance staff wellbeing.

The number of full-time equivalent civil servants is broken down by policy area and condition as follows:

As policy implementation and delivery is carried out primarily within health boards, the total budget figures for policy implementation are not centrally held.

The Scottish Government’s published budgets for the last five years, including details of planned spending, are available online.

Scottish Budget: 2024 to 2025 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish Budget: 2023 to 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish Budget 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish Budget 2021 to 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish Budget 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Stroke Engagement Forum met for the first time on 2 October 2024. The agenda included items on acute stroke care and research involvement and involved the sharing of local practices and approaches to shared challenges. The next meeting of the group will be in early 2025.

The membership of the Stroke Engagement Forum comprises stroke clinicians, stroke managers, Scottish Government officials and third sector representatives. Members are invited as a representative of their NHS Board or organisation. Members are expected to consult with their professional groups, networks and other stakeholders as appropriate. This forum is to facilitate operational improvement and the sharing of best practice. It is not a public forum and the Scottish Government will not be publishing the names of the attendees.

Stroke service delivery continues to be measured via the Scottish Stroke Care Audit and the Board reviews conducted as part of the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme.

Flood protection schemes are an effective way to improve flood resilience for the design flood, they are not an absolute guarantee that flooding will not occur. Events beyond the design flood are possible and a residual risk will always remain. It is up to individual local authorities to determine what level of protection they deem appropriate considering the impacts of climate change and wider environmental factors in the area of the flood protection works.

Operational matters are ultimately the responsibility of the infrastructure owner, including how their operations may be impacted in the event of a flood.

Where a flood protection development may have a significant impact on a European site, then under the Habitats Regulations an appropriate assessment must be carried out by the Local Authority to determine whether an impact on the integrity of the designated site is likely. Should the appropriate assessment conclude an adverse impact on integrity then the Local Authority must apply for a derogation from Scottish Ministers to allow the development to proceed. One of the three tests which must be satisfied under the Habitats Regulations before a derogation is granted is that the development is of imperative reasons of over-riding public interest.

Individual local authorities have responsibility for the development and delivery of flood protection schemes. Every location at risk is unique and therefore the business case for improving flood resilience will reflect this.

Where a flood protection development may have a significant impact on a European site, then under the Habitats Regulations an appropriate assessment must be carried out by the Local Authority to determine whether an impact on the integrity of the designated site is likely. Should the appropriate assessment conclude an adverse impact on integrity then the Local Authority must apply for a derogation from Scottish Ministers to allow the development to proceed. One of the three tests which must be satisfied under the Habitats Regulations before a derogation is granted is that the development is of imperative reasons of over-riding public interest.

It is the responsibility of Local Authorities to plan, develop and deliver flood protection schemes and other flood resilience actions.

Policy 3 of the National Planning Framework requires that development proposals contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity and that any potential adverse impacts will be minimised through careful planning and design. We would expect all schemes progressed by local authorities to include appropriate measures to conserve, restore and enhance biodiversity

It is the responsibility of Local Authorities to plan, develop and deliver flood protection schemes and other flood resilience actions.

It is best practice for options development to be carried out by local authorities using an appraisal framework. The options should go through a robust and transparent appraisal of costs and benefits, and positive and adverse impacts in order to deliver best use of public money taking full account of economic, environmental and social priorities

It is the responsibility of Local Authorities to plan, develop and deliver flood protection schemes and other flood resilience actions.

Local authorities carry out appraisals of flood protection schemes. It is expected that every scheme, which is delivered by a local authority, is developed with consideration of catchment processes and characteristics, making reasonable and practical efforts to enhance the landscape’s natural ability to slow and store flood water.

The Scottish Stroke Care Standards are designed to drive effective service delivery and improve patient outcomes. Monitoring of performance against stroke standards through the Scottish Stroke Care Audit allows us to identify where challenges are being faced in the delivery of high-quality stroke care and implement quality improvements.

We recognise the standards are challenging and continue to expect Health Boards to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet these standards and to work to improve their standards of care locally.

We continually assess the delivery of evidence-based stroke care, as recommended in the Progressive Stroke Pathway, via the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme Board review process. This allows for an evaluation of Board performance, identification of areas of challenge and the formulation of local action plans to improve the delivery of stroke care.