Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government expects that most patients will be seen and treated locally, where possible and appropriate, based on clinical need and operational effectiveness. It may not always be possible for Health Boards to provide access locally for all patients and for all services where Health Boards are, for example, constrained by geography or specialist services.

All Health Boards are expected to consider patient transport needs when they plan and deliver services. The Scottish Government acknowledges that, whenever patients are referred out with their usual Health Board area for treatment, their condition may sometimes make it difficult for them to travel. Ministers expect Health Boards to be mindful of this, to discuss patients’ difficulties with them, and make suitable arrangements to ensure that the necessary treatment can be provided in a patient-centred way.

The Scottish Ambulance Service Patient Transport Service (PTS) supports those patients who have a medical or mobility need for transport to be able to access scheduled hospital appointments. If the Service feels a patient does not have a clinical need for PTS they will be signposted to information regarding alternative transport providers.

Care and Review (M:CR) service replaced the Chronic Medication Service in all community pharmacies in February 2021. Patients who are registered for M:CR can receive serial prescriptions for their regular repeat medicines in agreement with their GP prescriber.

A serial prescription can be written for medicines, medical sundries or appliances and are generated for a period of 24, 48 or 56 weeks. However, controlled drugs listed within Schedule 1-4 of The Misuse of Drugs Regulations’ 2001 and cytotoxics such as methotrexate are not permissible on a serial prescription.

As the majority of medicines for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are controlled drugs, they are not are suitable to be dispensed under a serial prescription.

Where certain medicines are not suitable for a serial prescription, or where the GP wishes to monitor the patient’s condition more closely, they would be provided on a repeat prescription, which does not exceed a maximum quantity of 30 days’ supply of Schedule 2, 3 and 4 controlled drugs. The patient needs to ensure they request their repeat prescription in good time and their GP practice can advise how they manage requests for repeat prescriptions.

Social Security Scotland know some people have waited too long for a Child Disability Payment decision to be made, including some of those with cancer. Urgent improvement action has been taken by Social Security Scotland to speed up processing times. The latest published figures show around 25% more applications were processed in the last quarter than any other since the benefit launched. Social Security Scotland expect further impact of our improvement work to reflect in the coming months.

Social Security Scotland has a fast-track process for people who are terminally ill, called Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI), they aim to make decisions within seven working days of receiving a completed SRTI application and Benefits Assessment for Special Rules in Scotland (BASRiS) form.

The way Social Security Scotland delivers disability benefits is fundamentally different to the UK – people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect.

A significant change is that Social Security Scotland will collect information to support someone's application if needed. Under the DWP, people are forced to do this themselves.

To support faster decision making on applications, listening to feedback from clients and third parties, improvements include

• improved wording on the application to help clients understand what supporting information to supply,
• early phone engagement with clients who have submitted applications without supporting information to establish if they have readily available information to allow a decision to be made,
• improved communication with health and social care professionals and introducing a payment to support third sector organisations who provide supporting information at the agency’s request.

The Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF) is designed to support the families of all babies, children and young people from birth to age 18 who require inpatient care in Scotland. Posters and leaflets to promote the Fund are available in every Health Board and we continue to work with all Boards to maximise awareness and promotion of the scheme.

The Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC) is currently reviewing its website and has confirmed that it intends to signpost to the YPFF in its update.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards spending by local authorities is to allow them the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, most funding is provided by means of a block grant.

Local authorities are responsible for managing their own budgets and allocating the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, which includes the needs of care experienced children and young people; having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government recognises the financial challenges that local government are facing and that local authorities and their employees play a crucial role in our communities. In the most challenging budget settlement from the UK Government since devolution, the Scottish Government is providing nearly £13.5 billion in the 2023-24 Local Government Settlement. Since the flat-cash position set out in the 2022 Resource Spending Review, the Scottish Government listened to local authorities and has already increased the resources available to Local Government this year by over £793 million.

Funding is also provided to local authorities through targeted initiatives. For example, the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund has provided £60m to local authorities to help support the attainment and wellbeing of care experienced children and young people. The funding benefits a wide group, with care experienced children and young people from birth to the age of 26 being eligible for support through the fund.

The Scottish Government is currently considering the support offer available to care experienced children and young people, and to young people moving on from care into adulthood. Work is progressing to engage with delivery partners to understand how we can better target holistic support for the care experienced population to help improve outcomes and empower children, young people and families to thrive.

Scottish Forestry follows the published Woodland Creation Application Guidance process when dealing with forestry agents and applicants. In line with this process, Scottish Forestry has held pre-application discussions with Scottish Woodlands in relation to proposals in the Canonbie/Langholm area. These discussions have been focused on identifying and addressing potential environmental sensitivities that will need to be taken into account as the woodland designs are being developed.

Since 2016, across all planned projects in this area, 4522 ha of initial new planting proposals have been discussed in principle.

The Scottish Government’s policy and approach regarding woodland planting on agricultural land is based on the findings and recommendations of the Woodland Expansion Advisory Group, which were accepted by Ministers in 2013.

This policy is reflected in published “Guidance about Woodland Creation on Agricultural Land”. This guidance applies to applications to the Forestry Grant Scheme and is published on the Woodland Creation pages of the rural payments website under “Further information and technical guidance”.

30,995 hectares of land with a capability for agriculture classification (LCA) 2-7 has been converted to commercial forestry in the last five years (there is no classification 1 land in Scotland). The breakdown by year was as follows:

Transport Scotland has recently met with MPs and MSPs, and the Langholm Alliance to discuss signing to Langholm on the Scottish and English trunk road networks. Following these discussions, Transport Scotland has been reviewing potential changes on routes within Scotland leading to the A7. It has been documented that for the A7 trunk road itself, Langholm currently features on all appropriate route confirmatory signs northbound and southbound within Scotland.

In relation to the A7 and other Scottish destinations being adequately signposted from the M6, Transport Scotland continues to engage with MPs and officials at the Department for Transport, National Highways and Cumberland Council to discuss the continuity of signing to Langholm on both sides of the border.