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The Scottish Government expects everyone to be treated with consideration, dignity and respect when accessing and using NHS services. NHS staff will make every effort to ensure that the privacy and dignity of all patients are maintained in Scottish hospitals.

All patients should routinely be cared for in wards or bays which are for single sex occupancy. The Scottish Government provided guidelines and recommendations on the elimination of mixed sex accommodation in 1999 and 2000. Further guidance and direction regarding the provision of clinically appropriate single room accommodation in all planned new buildings and major refurbishments was provided in 2008 and 2010.

We are committed to implement the recommendations in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care Report, including the creation of a National Care Service (NCS), which we aim to introduce in the first Parliamentary Session. Our ambition, however, is to go beyond the creation of a NCS for adult social care. in the formal consultation we published in August 2021, we invited views on creating a comprehensive community health and social care service, including social work, that supports people of all ages. Our proposals include establishing a National Social Work Agency which would have responsibility for national workforce planning for social work.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Improvement Service collects data on instrumental music tuition in schools on behalf of local authorities, including information on charging structures and participation. This information can be found at the following link: https://www.improvementservice.org.uk/research .

There a number of routes into drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation treatment that do not always involve the Alcohol and Drug Partnerships or NHS services.

While the information requested is not currently held centrally, the Scottish Government is working with Public Health Scotland to develop a monitoring system which will include reporting on number of people accessing residential rehabilitation treatment from each Alcohol and Drugs Partnership area.

Getting people into the treatment and recovery that is right for them at the right time is at the core of our national mission to save and improve lives. £100 million of the additional £250 million funding announced as part of the National Mission will support further investment in - and expansion of - residential rehabilitation and associated aftercare over the next five years.

It is not possible to determine exactly how many owner occupied homes have alarms of the prescribed type installed as this information is not currently collected as part of the Scottish House Condition Survey. In the future, when the regulations on the new fire alarm standard have come into effect, it will be possible to collect more precise data because compliance with the tolerable standard is included in the Survey. This will allow us to monitor progress in bringing Scotland’s homes up to the new standard.

Drawing on the latest 2019 Scottish House Condition Survey data we estimate that of the approximately 1,550,000 owner occupied properties in Scotland, 7% (or around 100,000) of homes did not have any smoke alarm at all, and around a quarter (or 400,000) had only one alarm. This indicates that around 500,000 owner-occupied properties are likely to fall below the proposed standard. It is possible that a proportion of the remaining 1,005,000 properties with more than one alarm would also not comply with the standard, although it is not possible to determine this from the currently available data.

Revenue Scotland, in its role as Scotland’s fully devolved tax collection and management authority, regularly publishes data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT). These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2019-20 provides an overview of LBTT returns related to conveyances, leases and lease reviews received from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2020. This includes estimates for residential and non-residential conveyances at a sub-Scotland level.

In particular, Figure 16 of this publication includes an estimate of the number of residential conveyance returns received, by local authority area and year, while Figure 21 gives an estimate of the number of non-residential conveyances received by Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 2 area and year. Local authority level estimates of non-residential conveyances are not provided to minimise the risk of disclosing protected taxpayer information.

In addition, Revenue Scotland’s monthly LBTT publication provides Scotland-level information on the number of residential and non-residential LBTT returns, including leases, received by month of submission.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01075 on 22 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

The answer as provided in S6W-01075 sets out the available information published on the number of long term empty homes through Scottish Government annual statistics on long term empty properties and unoccupied exemptions, most recently published at Housing statistics quarterly update: December 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Detailed Excel tables are also available at Housing statistics: Empty properties and second homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , which provide local authority level figures on the number of long term empty properties from 2005 to 2020, and on the number of unoccupied exemptions from 1996 to 2020.

The figures are sourced from the Council Tax Base data return, and are based on an annual snapshot of properties on the Council Tax Valuation List as at the first Monday in September each year. Data on long term empty properties have been separately identified in the Council Tax Base data return from 2005 onwards, and so no information is held centrally for the earlier years 1999 to 2004.

There are currently 27 empty homes officers working across 25 local authority areas. We can advise that the following local authorities do not have an empty homes officer post:

All NHS Boards in Scotland have access to a range of tools and resources developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland to improve reliable delivery of evidence-based interventions to patients at risk of harm from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and to contribute to the overall aim of reducing mortality and harm in acute hospitals.

The timeline is a matter for Lord Hardie. Updates on the publication of his Report will be provided on the Inquiry website at the appropriate time, a link to which is included below. 

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