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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people are able to access the right support for their mental health without stigma, including medication where this is the most appropriate intervention.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the numbers of children and young people aged 19 and under who were prescribed antidepressants by a GP, without seeing a specialist.

Prescribing is a clinical decision based on a prescriber’s judgment as to what they believe is in the best interests of the patient. The prescribing of antidepressants to children and young people is undertaken in consultation with the patient and, where appropriate, with their family, to ensure that patient choice is also central to decisions taken regarding treatment and care.

Medication is one aspect of treatment, alongside psychological therapy or other therapeutic interventions, available as an option for children and young people who require support. We continue invest and improve access to other services, including by providing £16 million per annum to ensure that every secondary school in Scotland has access to counselling support; and by investing £15 million in community-based mental health and wellbeing services as part of our focus on early intervention and prevention.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland who want to work, including those receiving adult social care support, are able to access appropriate and flexible employability support.

We will continue to work towards our ambition to reduce the disability employment gap by at least half by 2038 as set out in the Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan. We will do this by supporting disabled people into employment , and ensuring that employers have the skills they need to recruit and retain this vastly underutilised pool of talent. We have reviewed current approaches to supporting disabled people with additional support needs into employment and will publish the findings by Summer 2022.

Through this plan we will work to ensure that our social care system delivers the right type and mix of support to help remove the barriers to work for disabled people.

Current models of care should afford flexibility to the individual to take up employment where possible subject to individual care needs being met. We are currently reviewing the guidance on Self Directed Support (SDS) to strengthen consistency and choice in the way social care is provided.

Going forward, we are committed to building on this as we work towards establishing a National Care Service to provide high quality, consistent and fair social care support across Scotland that enables people to achieve the outcomes they want to lead a full life.

Children and young people who are prescribed antidepressants will receive regular medication reviews with their prescribing clinician. The frequency and structure of these reviews will be based on the clinician’s judgment and on consultation with the patient and, where appropriate, with the patient’s family.

Clinicians will refer to the British National Formularyfor Children (BNFC) when prescribing antidepressant medication to children. The BNFC is the standard UK paediatric reference for prescribing and pharmacology.

Clinicians can also refer to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline NG134 which sets out further advice for the prescribing of antidepressant medication to children and young people.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people are able to access the right support for their mental health without stigma, including medication where this is the most appropriate intervention.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the numbers of children and young people aged 19 and under who were prescribed antidepressants by a GP, without seeing a specialist, while waiting for access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

We know that the Covid-19 pandemic has been exceptionally difficult for the mental health and wellbeing of many children, young people and their families. Long waiting times for treatment are unacceptable and we remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. This is why in the 2021-22 financial year we have allocated nearly £40 million to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS; with £4.25 million specifically invested this year to help NHS Boards tackle backlogs, with a clear view of meeting standards and clearing CAMHS backlogs by March 2023.

As set out in the response to S6W-07188 on 21 March 2022, prescribing is a clinical decision based on a prescriber’s judgment as to what they believe is in the best interests of the patient. The prescribing of antidepressants for children and young people is undertaken in consultation with the patient, and where appropriate with their family, to ensure that patient choice is also central to decisions taken regarding treatment and care.

Medication is one aspect of treatment, alongside psychological therapy or other therapeutic interventions, available as an option for children and young people who require support. We continue invest and improve access to other services, including by providing £16 million per annum to ensure that every secondary school in Scotland has access to counselling support; and by investing £15 million in community-based mental health and wellbeing services as part of our focus on early intervention and prevention.

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

There is currently no publicly available data regarding how patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) are managed following an initial episode.

This process is currently underway. Health Boards have been asked to submit 22/23 plans linked to activity trajectories and requests for funding, which will be used to allocate resources to address orthopaedic surgery waiting lists.

As answered PQ S6W-06126, in recognition of the anxiety the pause is causing, I have asked for work to explore options that will accelerate the restart of self-referrals for women aged 71 and over. Any decision will be informed by clinical advice and the on-going pandemic. As part of these considerations our goal is to restart the option to self-refer by the end of September 2022, with a number of factors still to be worked through. The restart will be done in a phased way without unduly impacting appointment times for the eligible screening population for whom there are clear screening benefits. Every effort continues to be made to increase capacity in the screening programme, including through deploying additional mobile units and offering weekend and evening appointments.

Regardless of their age, women should remain symptom aware and report any symptoms to their GP immediately for these to be investigated.

Modelling work completed prior to omicron suggested it would be March 2023 before all screening centres in Scotland would reach the point of being able to offer breast screening rounds of 39 months. There are however a number of factors at play including the ongoing pandemic, the steps we are continuing to take to increase capacity in the screening programme, as well as options that are being considered to accelerate the recommencement of self-referrals for women over-70.

A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People - Employment Action Plan' is focused on tackling the structural barriers that prevent, or make it more difficult, for disabled people to enter the labour market and sustain fair work. Our actions to tackle these barriers are agreed with our stakeholders including disabled people’s organisations, and include:

• We have invested £640,000 to date into Apt, our Public Social Partnership to work with employers to improve recruitment and retention, offering direct support to employers to enhance practice and the support provided to disabled employees. This includes 174 training sessions to employers across the length and breadth of Scotland, reaching 230 unique organisations, to enable them to attract, recruit or retain disabled employees.

• Through the Parental Employment Support Fund (PESF) - as part of No one Left Behind - across all 32 local authorities we have invested £18.1m up to 2021-22, to support parents in households impacted by child poverty, including disabled parents, to access or progress in work. £6.1m of this funding has specifically focused on supporting unemployed disabled parents. PESF will be supported by a further £8.79m in 2022-23. Experimental Statistics show that 2,160 parents have been supported. 13% of parents reported having a disability (280).
  

•  Disabled people are a priority eligibility group for Fair Start Scotland (FSS) . The latest statistics (published 23 Feb 22) show that 44% (18,352) of participants reported having a disability and 63% (26,316) reported having a long-term health condition. 31% of disabled people on FSS has so far started a job (4,065)

• The Workplace Equality Fund (WEF) opened for new applications on 17 Jan 2022, and is focused on providing financial support for employers to address longstanding barriers in the labour market that particular priority groups, including disabled people, experience. The fund supports collaborative projects which seek to improve equality-related outcomes for priority groups and create a more inclusive working environment. An evaluation of the WEF found that 96% of businesses found WEF well received.

• For those requiring more intensive support to enter and sustain employment (including people with mental health issues and/or learning disabilities) Individual Placement and Support and Supported Employment are available through Fair Start Scotland and No One Left Behind.