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The following table sets out NHS Scotland’s spend on both goods and services from other UK NHS bodies, as reported by NHS Boards in their annual accounts.

ISD publish waiting times for endoscopy as part of the Diagnostics Waiting Times publication. The data published gives the number of people who are still waiting at the end of each month, and does not provide the completed waiting times for this test. Performance against the 6 week standard is only available from quarter ending June 2009. These can be accessed at the following web site: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Diagnostics/

We anticipate that the new guidance on physical intervention and seclusion in schools will be published in January 2021. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and the Equality and Human Rights Commissioner reached agreement with the Scottish Government on the membership of the working group, which will meet for the first time in January 2020. There will be a full public consultation on the new guidance prior to publication.

The new guidance will be clear that physical intervention and seclusion should only ever be a last resort, and never used for disciplinary purposes. The guidance will sit within a ‘suite’ of documents in the ‘Included, Engaged and Involved’ series, that places at its core positive relationships and behaviour, early intervention, minimilisation of the use of physical intervention and seclusion, and de-escalation techniques. We are committed to taking an explicitly human-rights based approach to the new national guidance, in which everyone can have confidence.

As part of the process of planning the Nursing and Midwifery workforce, each year Ministers recommend the numbers of commissioned places for all fields of pre-registration nursing and midwifery education and training based on the work of the Student Intake Group.

The Student Intake Group, which includes stakeholder representation from Trades Unions, NHS Boards, Third Sector and Independent Healthcare providers, Higher Education Institutions and NHS Education for Scotland, develops an analysis of demand arising from projected numbers of leavers, joiners and newly qualified nurses. The analysis draws on ISD and Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) Workforce Data alongside Professional Judgement Templates submitted by the sectors represented on the Stakeholder Group. This analysis is undertaken for each field of nursing, including Mental Health, and for midwifery by individual years across a 10 year timeframe covering short, medium and long term.

Ministers have recommended a 5% increase to the nursing and midwifery student intake in academic year 2020-21, which delivers 4,206 total places of which 632 are Mental Health nursing places.

The Lord Advocate has agreed in principle - subject to approval of the detailed arrangements - to a Police Scotland proposal to introduce speed awareness courses, where appropriate, as an alternative to prosecution.

A working group comprising Police Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Safety Camera Programme are working together to devise the infrastructure and guidance required for the introduction of speed awareness courses along with identification of potential course providers. The scope of the required work means that it is not possible to provide a specific timescale for any final decision on speed awareness courses and their implementation.

The information requested on how many agency midwives there are broken down by board is not centrally held by ISD or NES.

We are working closely with Health and Social Care partnerships and COSLA to monitor the costs of the extension of the free personal care policy and this will help to inform future funding allocations.

The Scottish Government will publish its spending plans in due course as part of the Scottish Budget.

Transport Scotland expects to have received all quotations related to the installation of ice sensor equipment this month. Evaluation of quotations will take place in early January and equipment will be installed as soon as possible thereafter. In the meantime, the bridge Operating Company (Amey) has robust procedures in place and will be monitoring the Queensferry Crossing to ensure the continued safety of road users.

Guidance on Free Personal Care was renewed to include the extension of free personal care and this was sent in December 2018 to COSLA, Chief Officers and Chief Finance Officers of Health and Social Care Partnerships, Chief Executives, Chief Finance Officers and Chief Social Work Officers of Local Authorities, Social Work Scotland’s Self-directed Support Practice Forum and the Social Work Scotland Adult Social Care Committee.

https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/cc2018_03.pdf

Together with the First Minister, I officially launched the extension of free personal care at an event at Capability Scotland which received extensive media coverage.

The Scottish Government produced a short Q and A document for the public setting out the key features on the policy which is available on our website.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/free-personal-nursing-care-qa/

I also took part in an interview with the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability to produce video clips setting out how disabled people can access free personal care. These are also available on the Scottish Government website.

https://blogs.gov.scot/health-social-care-integration/2019/03/29/free-personal-care-for-under-65s/

The following table provides the financial allocation by Local Authority in 2019/20 for the extension of Free Personal Care to under 65s.