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The Scottish Government has no plans to establish a Young Cancer Patient Travel Fund.

Financial support for travel to hospital is available for patients and authorised escorts, in line with eligibility criteria and medical requirements under the Patient Travel Expenses Scheme and Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme. Boards also have discretion to reimburse patient travel expenses where it is viewed to be an extension of treatment costs and deemed to be clinically necessary.

Furthermore, the Young Patients Family Fund helps families of young inpatients under 18 to cover some of the costs of hospital visits. This fund is available for all patients including those diagnosed with cancer.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for the period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

For the latest data I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17130 on
‎ 17 May 2023. 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

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and have people at the centre of their care.

Clinical nurse specialists (CNS) make a valued contribution to delivering services and supporting patients and families who require specialist care. The Scottish Government has invested over £2.4 million annually in the Specialist Nursing and Care Fund since 2015, which continues to increase access to CNS nationally.

The Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland; however, the statutory responsibility for delivering or commissioning services at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for lymphocytic leukaemia specialist nurses, are therefore matters for those bodies.

However, within cancer services we have piloted 12 Single Point of Contact (SPoC) programmes. This approach will ensure patients with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of cancer have dedicated person-centred support to discuss their specific circumstances.

The National Optimal Lung Cancer Diagnostic Pathway provides boards with best practice examples to improve lung cancer diagnostic pathway efficiency. Adoption of the optimal diagnostic pathway will take time as boards begin to redesign their services, funding has been aligned to this work to help support boards implement diagnostic pathway improvements over time. Not all patients that move through diagnostic pathways will have cancer, however data form Public Health Scotland shows that we continue to treat around 1,000 lung cancer patients in NHS Scotland on average each quarter. Data on the number of lung cancers treated in Jan - March 2023 will be published by PHS on 27 June 2023.

The Scottish Breast Screening programme was temporarily paused between March 2020 – August 2020 in order to reduce the risk of participants becoming infected with Covid-19, to enable physical distancing, and to minimise the impact on essential NHS services as they responded to the virus. When screening resumed, a continued pause on self-referrals allowed appointments to be prioritised for those aged 50-70 years old, the recommended screening population. A phased restart of self-referrals was agreed on October 2022. Following this, women aged 71-74, and those over 75 with a history of breast cancer, have been eligible to self-refer for a screening appointment since November 2020.

Table 1 below shows the number of women who self-referred in each of the last three reporting years that run from 1 April to 31 March.

Table 1 shows the number of self-referrals from April 2020 - March 2023

To support the ongoing delivery of Multi-Disciplinary Teams in 2022-23, including pharmacists, mental health workers and physiotherapists, we made available £170 million through the Primary Care Improvement Fund for Health and Social Care Partnerships. This was allocated in accordance with local need, with due consideration to implementation plans and Agenda for Change uplifts.

The Scottish Government has seen a substantive reduction in new outpatient, as well as inpatient and day case waits over two years since the targets were announced last year.

As of 31 March 2023, for outpatient appointments, 33 out of 41 specialties (80%) have fewer than 10 waits over 2 years, while 20 specialties have none. We also continue to see a reduction in waits over 18 months for new outpatients, which have reduced by 48.5% at 31 March 2023 compared to June 2022 (from 8,804 to 4,534). 41% of specialties also now have fewer than 10 patients waiting over 52 weeks. The number of patients waiting longer than 2 years for inpatient or day case treatment was reduced by 27% since targets were announced (from 9,572 to 6,985). 18 of 30 specialties have fewer than 10 patients waiting more than two years, and 13 specialties having no-one waiting more than 2 years.

The Scottish Government is committed to an infrastructure solution to address landslip risks at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful and shares the urgency communities and businesses place on maintaining and improving connectivity of this vital route.

The identification of the preferred route option through the Glen Croe valley on 2 June 2023 is a very important milestone in finding a solution to this long-standing problem. The proposed new debris flow shelter will help protect the road and road users from future landslides.

Work is now being taken forward at pace to further develop our proposals, including the detailed development and assessment of the preferred route option along with the preparation of an Environmental Impact Assessment, draft Road Orders and draft Compulsory Purchase Orders. Transport Scotland will continue to look to expedite the programme where possible as we take forward the next stage in the process with a view to publishing draft Orders by the end of 2024 for formal consultation.

Progress thereafter will depend on the level and nature of any representations, including objections, to the published draft Orders. Should objections be received following publication of draft Orders then a public local inquiry may be required to consider all unresolved objections. The Scottish Government is duty bound to properly follow the correct statutory procedures which rightly include the opportunity for local communities to input and have any objections received resolved appropriately.

Procurement of a main works contractor for the permanent, long term solution can only commence upon completion of the statutory processes.

We’re taking a wide range of actions to tackle the drug deaths crisis. Through the National Mission on drugs we have:

• Continued to expand Residential Rehab, more particularly over the course of this parliament, we are working to increase overall residential rehabilitation capacity by 50% which is an increase from 425 beds to 650 beds. Through our work on pathways into rehab and investment in capacity, we aim to increase the number of statutory funded placements by 300% over this parliamentary term so that in 2026 at least 1,000 people are publicly funded for their placement.
• Provided £15m a year funding to community and grass-roots organisations that supported over 300 projects across Scotland, including 48 projects in the most recent funding round last month.
• Continued to drive implementation of the MAT Standards. All Health Boards, IJBs and Local Authorities have returned delivery plans and will be regularly reporting on progress to the Drugs and Alcohol Policy Minister.
• Announced a target focused on increasing the number of people in community based opioid substitute therapy to 32,000 by April 2024.
• Progressed work on introducing safer drug consumption facilities, facilitating development of a proposal which is now being considered by COPFS.
• Continued to expand the National Naloxone Programme to ensure naloxone is easily available to anyone at risk of overdose.
• Established the National Collaborative to ensure that the voices of those with lived and living experience are at the centre of policy and decision-making.
• Published a rapid review into mental health and substance use services , including recommendations to improve service delivery and support other work such as implementation of the MAT standards.
• Published our response to the Drug Death Taskforce Report , detailing over 80 actions, supported by significant new spending commitments of over £68m for the remainder of this parliament.

Last year we published National Mission on Drugs: annual report 2021 to 2022 which sets out the progress made between January 2021 and 31 March 2022 by national government, local government and third sector partners towards reducing drug deaths and improving the lives of those impacted by drugs in Scotland.

The second annual report on the progress of the National Mission 2022 to 2023 is due to be published this summer.