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Ministers did not see resilience partnership plans following exercise Silver Swan. Regional Resilience Partnerships plans are not routinely shared with Scottish Government Ministers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-29482 on 9 June 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

As we ease ourselves out of restriction, the Scottish Government’s first priority is to make sure services can resume safely. I expect some youth work activity will be able to resume quickly with appropriate measures in place. However, it will not be possible to offer some services until there is a further easing on current restrictions. The timeline for this will follow advice given by Public Health Scotland.

I continue to liaise with a range of stakeholders and partners to assess this situation. Indeed, some national youth organisations have already published views on how community based youth work may resume services whilst keeping workers and young people safe. A short term working group has been created to develop guidance for the CLD sector and we aim to publish this in the coming weeks.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Local authorities are responsible for the recruitment of counsellors.

As stated in the Programme for Government 2018-19, we anticipated that the investment of over £60m in additional school counselling services across Scotland would create around 350 counsellors in school education. Local authority plans to implement the commitment were received earlier this year and are showing that overall plans are in place to meet the commitment in full.

The mental health and wellbeing support being put in place by local authorities, including providing access to counsellors, is a crucial aspect for supporting children and young people’s mental health, both in the current period of closures and as we seek to recover from COVID-19. The Scottish Government is continuing to work with our local authority partners to identify mental health supports that have been put in place for children and young people in response to COVID-19.

In addition, a recent survey, undertaken by the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP), showed that a number of authorities are currently providing additional supports through school counsellors.

The Scottish Government is taking steps to develop a robust understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on young people’s mental health and to respond to these.

The Mental Health Research Advisory Group has been established to monitor and interpret research developments. This will help us to put in place evidence-based responses across the population including for young people.

The Chief Scientist Office is funding rapid Scottish led research on COVID-19, including studies looking at Children Young People’s mental health, with a specific focus on vulnerable children. We will also continue to monitor surveys and research such as the Young Scot Lockdown Lowdown.

We have invested £105,000 to support Young Scot to create Aye Feel, an enhanced digital mental wellbeing resource for young people. The new content is hosted on Young Scot’s own digital platform – as well as on social media. Aye Feel provides a place where young people can find information and advice within Young Scot’s well-established set of services which young people already use.

The Scottish Government has made available an additional £3 million marketing spend in Scottish newspapers across the rest of the year. This will be targeted where it is most needed, including local newspapers, to support them during the COVID-19 crisis.

We recognise the importance of local newspapers and other local media outlets, and will consider how best to support their long-term future as part of the recovery process.

The Scottish Government is not considering the establishment of a "national general practice service".

Since the inception of the NHS, general practice has developed as an independent contractor model. After consideration and wide discussion the Scottish Government and BMA agreed in 2018 that general practice would continue as an independent contractor model.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-29407 on 10 June 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx. 

On the 10 April, the Chief Medical Officer, Chair of the Scottish General Practitioners Committee of the BMA and Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) wrote to GPs to provide advice and support on having anticipatory care planning conversations and to make clear that there is no requirement for health professionals to have a DNACPR discussion as part of this conversation, unless the patient wishes to discuss it or clinician feels strongly it is necessary to raise in conversation for the patient’s wellbeing. On the 17 April, a further joint letter from the Scottish Government’s Chief Medical Officer, BMA and RCGP was sent to GPs to reinforce the advice already provided.

There has been no change to the guidance on the use of Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary (DNACPR) forms during the Covid 19 outbreak. As such, the Scottish Government has not sought legal advice on the existing DNACPR guidance during the Covid 19 outbreak.

In 2016, the DNACPR policy was reviewed to reflect feedback and changes in the national good practice guidance which remains current (Decisions Relating to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - guidance from the British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing and the Resuscitation Council ( UK) - 2016). This policy also takes into account relevant legal changes resulting from case law and therefore specialist legal advice was provided as part of the formation of the policy.