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The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011 (SSI 210 (15) Staffing) sets out a requirement for care service providers to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, welfare and safety of service users:

‘A provider must, having regard to the size and nature of the care services, the statement of aims and objectives and the number and needs of service users…ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, welfare and safety of service users.’

Where these requirements are not met, action can be taken by the Care Inspectorate as the regulator of care services in Scotland, including formal enforcement action if necessary.

The Care Inspectorate inspects services to ensure that people experience high-quality care, and that care services are making a positive impact on people’s lives, based on their needs, rights and choices. The Care Inspectorate’s quality framework for care homes for adults and older people includes a Quality Indicator 3.3: Staffing arrangements are right, and staff work well together . This includes the extent to which the skill mix, numbers and deployment of staff meet the needs of people and the service has an effective process for assessing how many staff hours are needed.

The Care Inspectorate retains the discretion to impose conditions about staffing, or any other matter, on any individual care service where that is necessary to ensure people experience high quality care.

Student nurses entering Scottish Government funded degree programmes will increase by 9% in 2022-23, to a total recommended intake of 4536 students. This will be the 10 th successive increase in recommended student numbers, with the intake doubling over the last decade.

Every year, the Scottish Government undertakes a robust nursing student intake planning process to determine the target number of pre-registration students to which Scottish universities should recruit to in the following academic year to meet estimated future nursing workforce demands.

Posts are banded locally according to the procedure agreed in partnership. Banding is based on the information in the agreed Job Description, not on job title. A fully qualified and experienced District Nurse would normally be matched to a Band 6 profile, unless they also undertook significant leadership/management or delivered advanced clinical practise. However, information on specific banding outcomes is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07914 on 28 April 2022. 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

Allowances for fuel that are paid to social care workers are a matter for individual employers and are not set by the Scottish Government. We are, however, actively engaged with our partners, including local government, to understand what impact the increase in fuel prices is having across Scotland, and how social care providers can support their staff to ensure they can continue to deliver the invaluable support they provide. In NHS Scotland, Employers and Staff Side representatives have recently agreed a temporary 5p increase to standard mileage rates. This agreement is set out in DL(2022)11 .

We do not hold data centrally on the number of NHS staff who would potentially be affected by the re-introduction of the abatement rules.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-07924 on 27 April 2022. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-07924 on 27 April 2022. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-07924 on 27 April 2022. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07711 on 19 April 2022. 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.