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All NHS boards have strategies in place to help improve the quality, clinical and cost effectiveness of prescribing. These include GP and pharmacist medicines reviews and reviews of repeat prescribing. Strategies are also supported by local and national publicity campaigns.

The Scottish Therapeutics Utility (STU) is a software package to help general practices identify areas of potential medicines waste within their repeat prescribing systems. This product is provided free to NHS boards by the Scottish Government’s Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics Branch. STU offers a fresh approach to reviewing repeat medication which accounts for 80% of dispensed medicines.

Polypharmacy guidance issued by the Scottish Government aims to ensure priority patients prescribed multiple medicines are reviewed to ensure they receive the most appropriate and effective pharmaceutical care. This guidance is supported by additional national prescribing strategies focussing on Diabetes, Respiratory and Chronic Pain prescribing.

The Supporting Children's Learning Code of Practice is currently being revised. It is anticipated that the revised Code will be published by the end of 2017.

The approach that was agreed and consulted upon is that the National Flood Risk Assessment (NFRA) and the identification of Potentially Vulnerable Areas (PVAs) will be reviewed and re-published within each six year planning cycle. Whilst Scottish Ministers have a power under the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (the Act) to direct SEPA to review and, where appropriate update the document which identifies PVAs at other times outwith this six year cycle, there are no plans to use this power.

The Act created a new framework for the assessment and management of flood risk to reduce the risk of flooding from all sources, as far as is reasonable, taking full account of environmental, economic and social priorities. This meant moving away from short-term reactive decisions based on the latest flood event, and embracing long-term proactive planning and investment decisions.

The current legislation requires SEPA to review, update where appropriate, and submit to Scottish Ministers the document identifying the PVAs by 22 September 2018.

Awareness of child and adolescent mental health in schools has been improved by, amongst other things, our commitment to encouraging the establishment of explicit links between schools and child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) specialists as well as the development of a web-based toolkit (http://handsonscotland.co.uk) aimed at improving the confidence of teachers and others in responding to the mental health needs of children.

Education Scotland continue to roll out Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid for Children and Young People. The aim of this is to train staff within secondary school communities to increase their confidence in approaching pupils who they think might be struggling with a mental health problem. This training should complement the range of mental health strategies that are already in place within the local authorities and the support should target the school communities that need it the most first.

A mental health link person is available to every school, this has been achieved in a variety of ways using various models working to meet local needs. The link worker may be a CAMHS clinician or another speciality such as a primary care worker. However the named link person will be able to contact specialist CAMHS services for advice if they have any concerns about a pupil.

In April 2016 Aberdeenshire council in association with NHS Grampian, Police Scotland and Aberdeenshire voluntary action published their Mental Health and wellbeing strategy 2016-2019 (http://www.girfec-aberdeenshire.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GIRFEC-Mental-Health-Wellbeing-Strategy-final-e-version.pdf). The strategy focuses on ensuring that appropriate services are available to children, young people and their families throughout Aberdeenshire.

Statutory Adoption Pay is a reserved matter. Under UK Government regulations, self-employed parents are not entitled to statutory pay when adopting a child.

Under The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, adopters have a legal right to request an assessment of their needs at any time and additional support can take many forms. Corporate Parenting duties on all relevant public bodies require bodies to work together to meet the needs of current and former looked after children.

The Scottish Government's Mental Health strategy released on 31 March 2017 includes a number of actions to build on the existing support already available.

The Adoption Support Services and Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2009 provide the framework for the provision of support and allowances. An adoption allowance may be payable to an adoptive parent for the purpose of supporting the placement of the adoptive child or the continuation of adoption arrangements after an adoption order is made. Agencies are required to publish information on the details of their adoption allowances scheme.

Action 12 in the Mental Health Strategy 2017 - 27 commits to supporting the further development of the National Rural Mental Health Forum to reflect the unique circumstances presented by rural isolation. The Government has also noted the results of a recent survey by Support In Mind and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). We welcome the survey's focus on people's experiences of mental health and wellbeing in rural and remote areas, which is impacted by a range of factors.

More generally, the Scottish Government sets national direction of policy on mental health and provides funding to agencies – including NHS Boards and Local Authorities – to support implementation of policy.

The management of local actions in implementing national policy, and decisions on local spending priorities, are the responsibility of relevant local agencies. This includes assessing the needs of local populations. It is therefore the responsibility of NHS Boards and local authorities to work with their partners and regularly review spending decisions to ensure they deliver fit for purpose services which respond to the needs of their local population, including children and young people in rural areas with mental health issues.

Reducing health inequalities is one of the biggest challenges we face. To tackle this, we recognise that the root of health inequalities can be found in income inequalities – inequalities which are exacerbated by the UK Government’s policies of austerity and welfare reform.

Within my own portfolio, sport and physical activity are key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and so contribute to tackling health inequality. Our Active Schools programme provides opportunities for sport and physical activity before school, during lunchtime, and after school. Our national agency for sport, sportscotland, invested £80 million in the programme over the period 2007 to 2015, with up to another
£50 million planned in the period 2015 to 2019.

Education authorities have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, including those with ADHD. This includes ensuring there are the appropriate resources in place to support children and young people in their learning.

There is no specific guidance on the ratio of teachers of teaching assistants to pupils. This is a matter for education authorities.

The Supporting Children's Learning Code of Practice provides detailed practical guidance on supporting a child or young person with an additional support need. The code of practice is due to be revised in 2017

There is at present no standard defibrillator road sign in Scotland or internationally.

Local PAD signage is important and it is recommended, in line with Resuscitation Council (UK) guidance, there should be signs in premises directing people to a PAD and exactly where it is located. The Resuscitation Council (UK) has developed a single defibrillator sign that is due to be introduced next month.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Strategy for Scotland sets out our commitment to improve outcomes after out of hospital cardiac arrest. Using a defibrillator to restart a heart is one in a series of actions that improve survival after cardiac arrest. The main ways we are improving rapid defibrillator deployment under the OHCA Strategy are: despatching emergency service vehicles or community first responders with defibrillator or directing a bystander to a publicly available defibrillator (PAD).

The SAS is working to map all PADs onto the Ambulance Control Centres system so they will be able to rapidly deploy PADs in cases of OHCA. We encourage members of the public, communities, businesses and other partners responsible for PADs to register the details. This can be done through a dedicated section of the SAS website at the following link; http://www.scottishambulance.com/YourCommunity/pad.aspx.

Further information can be found here: OHCA - A Strategy for Scotland; http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00474154.pdf and OHCA - A Strategy for Scotland Review; http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00510496.pdf.

The Energy Consents Unit employs 15 members of staff to assess section 36 and 37 applications under the Electricity Act 1989. The Energy Consents Unit employs no (a) environmental experts, (b) chartered landscape architects, (c) planners and (d) solicitors. In assessing such applications, the Scottish Government has access to expert advice from its statutory stakeholders namely, Local Planning Authorities, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish National Heritage and Historic Environment Scotland. In addition, subject to the details of the application, a wide range of other stakeholders may also be consulted where their specific expertise is required. Details of the individuals and resources utilised by these organisations is an operational matter for each of the bodies concerned and is not held centrally.

The Energy Consents Unit also utilises solicitors within Scottish Government Legal Directorate and on a project specific basis may also consult with Senior Counsel and the Lord Advocate.