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See “Monthly Service Support Costs” and “Service Support Costs to date” columns in the table attached to reply for S6W-00765 on 30 June 2021.

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

For completeness, information on both the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 and the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020 is included within the scope of this answer.

General advice on the first Act for stakeholders was published in April 2020.This was subsequently superseded on 12 June 2020 with guidance covering both Acts.That guidance remains on the Scottish Government website . It provides central and local government and public bodies in Scotland an overview of the key measures within the Acts, and is easily available to health and social care partnerships. Explanatory notes were also published for both Acts, which are also accessible on legislation.gov.uk .

Guidance and resources were also supplied on specific areas covered within the Acts. On 31 March 2021, Coronavirus (COVID-19) Supplementary National Child Protection Guidance was issued to a number of senior staff at key agencies involved with child protection, including Integrated Joint Board (IJB) Chief Officers and Chief Executives of NHS Boards. The Guidance was updated and reissued on 16 April, 1 June, 31 August and 22 December 2020. It remains under review and will be updated as necessary.

Guidance on the social care staff support fund was published on 24 June 2020 on the Scottish Government website. It was updated on 15 April 2021. The guidance provides information for social care workers and employers about the Social Care Staff Support Fund.

In terms of resources, following detailed review of the financial position £1.7 billion of additional funding has been provided in 2020-21 to support the Health and Social Care Sector in the response to the pandemic. Allocations during 2020-21 have been made of £561 million for Integration Authorities to support additional COVID costs including funding for sustainability payments to meet forecast costs for 2020-21, in addition to wider social care support, for example for reducing delayed discharges, for loss of income and for other staff costs. The Scottish Government is very clear that we will meet any increasing need for social care as a result of the pandemic, and we will continue to work with Integration Authorities, COSLA and Health Boards to ensure they have the resources required. All of this is over and above the normal funding provided to Integration Authorities.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) has had to reschedule the publication of its statistics on the causes of deaths registered in 2020, including deaths by suicide.

These were originally scheduled for publication in June 2021. However, due to action to clear a backlog of toxicology analyses and an increase in the number of deaths requiring investigation in 2020, there was a delay in receipt of relevant data from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

NRS has now received this data from COPFS and plans to publish these statistics on 17 August 2021. Further information is available on the NRS website: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/future-publications

We recognise the importance of more frequent sharing of data on deaths by suspected suicide to further support responsive local suicide prevention planning.

We are working closely with Public Health Scotland who will roll out processes for timely data sharing over the summer. These processes involve extracting anonymised information on deaths by suspected suicide from Police Scotland records and providing this information on a regular basis to local partners. The frequency of this information sharing is yet to be determined. As this data will be provisional and not subject to the standard verification processes for suicide data, there are presently no plans to publish this.

We remain on track to deliver the disability benefits to the timetable announced in November last year, starting with Child Disability Payment which will be piloted in summer this year and rolled out fully from the autumn.

Adult Disability Payment, our replacement for the UK Government’s Personal Independence Payment, will begin with a pilot for new applications in spring 2022 ahead of national launch by summer 2022.

This is of course subject to the continuing impact of the pandemic on our partners in delivery including in health and social care, local authorities, and the UK Government. We continue to work closely with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to re-plan delivery of the remaining devolved benefits with this in mind.

We have no plans to bring forward secondary legislation to introduce a no-fault compensation scheme at this time.

Despite carrying out considerable research and a number of consultations since no-fault compensation proposals were first introduced in 2007, forming expert groups and looking to other countries, including Sweden, there has never been consensus on the most appropriate compensation or redress model for Scotland, or how such a scheme would meet its objectives within our health and social care framework. The member herself has previously questioned whether a no-fault compensation scheme might introduce an additional administrative burden, a culture of compensation, more litigation and a charter for lawyers.

Working with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and other health and care partners we are creating a health and social care environment that uses knowledge from adverse events to inform continuous improvement to health and care services in a culture that embraces openness and learning, without fear of censure when things go wrong. The Duty of Candour Procedure (Scotland) Regulations, which we introduced in April 2018, places this approach on a legal footing.

We will continue to focus our energies and use all the mechanisms at our disposal in driving forward preventative measures in the delivery of person-centred treatment and care that is safe and of a high quality.

Students who will be graduating as nurses in the 2021-22 academic year are still completing their education programmes and most are not due to graduate until September. While it is still therefore early in the recruitment process, the following table shows the number of graduates expected from Scottish universities by September and the estimated number of posts to be offered by NHS Boards for newly qualified nurses. At present the number of posts available equates to 87.1% of the total graduate workforce. These numbers are subject to revision as the recruitment process continues and more graduates are offered posts.

The cost of rectification for the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh project is £16.8 million. This consists of: £10.3 million relating to remedial works at the new facilities; £2.8 million for maintaining existing sites; and £3.7 million project and professional costs relating to ongoing project management and required specialist review.

Radiography education is not commissioned or controlled by the Scottish Government. The following table sets out the number of entrants to accredited radiography courses at Scottish Universities each academic year. The courses included match the Health and Care Professions Council’s (HCPC) list of accredited courses from 2015-16.

Entrants to accredited pre-registration radiography courses.

The cost of medicines and appliances in the past five financial years, 2016-17 to 2020-21, is shown in Table 1. These data relate to community dispensing only.