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The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo handled by Clydeport.

Available information regarding waterborne freight at Scottish ports can be found in chapter 9 of the Scottish Transport Statistics publication: https://www.transport.gov.scot/our-approach/statistics/#42763 .

The survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists describes some of the issues with current mental health service provision that we are working hard to improve. The recent Audit Scotland report concluded that our new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy "recognises the importance of a whole system approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing and provides a foundation for better joint working ". The Mental Health Strategy Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan will be published in the coming weeks, and these will set out the actions we intend to take to address many of the issues across the whole system.

Mental health spending by NHS Boards has doubled in cash terms rising from £651 million in 2006-07 to £1.3 billion in 2021-22. Spend on mental health represents around 8.8% of total NHS expenditure. We have committed that 10% of the total frontline NHS budget should be spent on mental health by the end of this parliamentary session.

NHS Boards will draw funding for mental health services from the overall funds allocated to them by the Scottish Government. I expect NHS Boards to work with their Integration Joint Board and other partners to make local budget decisions which reflect the national mental health priority and ensure the provision of local services which meet the assessed needs of their populations.

The survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists describes some of the issues with current mental health service provision that we are working hard to improve. The recent Audit Scotland report concluded that our new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy "recognises the importance of a whole system approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing and provides a foundation for better joint working ". The Mental Health Strategy Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan will be published in the coming weeks, and these will set out the actions we intend to take to address many of the issues across the whole system.

We fully agree with the conclusion in Audit Scotland’s report that our focus cannot just be on access to specialist services for mental health. As well as many other key pieces of work, our commitment to this is shown by:

• Our investment of £51m in the adult Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund since 2021. Approximately 3,300 grants were made to local organisations across Scotland in its first two years.
• Our continuing national roll-out of our Distress Brief Intervention programme.
• Our ongoing investment (£4.4m in 2022/23) in NHS 24’s Mental Health Hub, which continues to receive approx. 2,500 calls a week.

To support the range of help available, mental health spending has doubled in cash terms from £651m to £1.3bn since 2007.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), has made available a full suite of information for dental teams on the forthcoming changes including interactive webinars, short educational videos and a comprehensive FAQ document. These can be accessed on Scottish Dental and through NES Turas learning accounts.

In addition to these materials, officials will continue to meet regularly with NHS Boards to understand how dentists can be better supported, within their local area, in transitioning to the new payment system.

We understand that dentists will be eager to communicate with their patients about the changes, and we will shortly be providing materials direct to practices to help deliver this information.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on allocation of Community Link Worker posts and capacity at individual General Practice level. This data will be held by individual Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCP) alongside their local Primary Care Improvement Plans (PCIP).

At 31 st March 2023, there were over 308 WTE primary care Community Link Workers in post across Scotland. The following PCIP publication shows a breakdown of the Whole Time Equivalent by HSCP area:

Primary Care Improvement Plans: Summary of Implementation Progress at March 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The changes to examination recall times follow independent best practice guidelines set by NICE, allowing dentists to tailor recalls based on patients’ individual oral health needs. The guidelines can be found online at: Overview | Dental checks: intervals between oral health reviews | Guidance | NICE.

No one will have reduced access to dental examinations if they need them, alongside the annual extended clinical exam, there is a new review examination available, free of charge, as often as the dentist deems it clinically necessary.

The fee per item system of payment affords the opportunity to robustly monitor and evaluate payment reform, building on existing statistical publications. Officials are presently working with partners on the precise details of the data monitoring programme. Evaluation will be a future consideration, once the new system has bedded-in.

Government recognises that it is important that reform is supported by evidence demonstrating the reality of the position on the ground, in order to support the Scottish Government commitment to sustain NHS dental services.

The 2023 “Brush Up” campaign aims to deliver key messaging to the public using a variety of media, community and partnership channels.

Additionally, dentists will be able to offer a review examination as often as necessary to any patient where it is clinically necessary to do so. There will be no charge to the patient for the review exam.

In recognition of long waiting times for dental surgery which have been exacerbated due to the pandemic, the Scottish Government published the NHS Recovery Plan in August 2021. The £1 billion backed plan will support an increase in outpatient and inpatient activity to reduce waiting times through the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care.

Key actions of the plan include creating a network of National Treatment Centres (NTC’s) which will provide and create capacity nationally. This additional capacity will free up space for other specialties locally to address waiting times.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic.

As the lighting in question is local authority owned, we would advise Mr Sweeney to contact Glasgow City Council for further information.