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The Scottish Government is satisfied that no further change is required to the legislation in relation to the rights for grandparents to access their grandchildren. The Scottish Government appreciates that grandparents can often play an important and valuable role in a child’s life. Grandparents can currently apply to the court for contact rights. A decision will be made taking account of the child’s views and according to the best interests of the child.

Section 11ZA(3)(f) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (the 1995 Act) as inserted by the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 will require the court to have regard to the effect that the order they are deciding whether or not to make might have on the child’s important relationships with other people. This could include grandparents.

Section 11ZA of the 1995 Act is not yet in force as implementation is reliant upon the register of child welfare reporters being established. The Scottish Government has consulted on the register of child welfare reporters and plans to lay regulations in spring 2022 on the register. Once the regulations are in force there would need to be a lead in time for the register to be fully operational. Our indicative timetable for this is April 2023.

The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to work with health boards to support their planning and the safe delivery of immunisation services during the pandemic.

In Scotland, there is no 18 month target for second dose as the JCVI recommends a schedule of 0, 6-24 months for all HPV vaccines. Further information can be found in The Green Book Chapter for HPV. Additionally, the data for HPV immunisation programmes is collected by NHS Board reflecting that NHS Boards deliver the HPV immunisation programme to pupils.

The latest HPV immunisation statistics published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) for academic year 2019/20 show that uptake for the HPV vaccine remains high. Further information is available online on the PHS website: HPV Immunisation Statistics Scotland 22 December 2020 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

Public Health Scotland collate data on the HPV vaccination programme for the previous school year every autumn. Data for school year 2020/21 will be collated in autumn 2021 and published in November 2021. Therefore, we cannot provide information on the most recent school year.

The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to work with health boards to support their planning and the safe delivery of immunisation services during the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that pupils who were not offered the HPV vaccine (first or second dose), or who missed the immunisation sessions at their school, will be offered the vaccine during planned catch-up sessions arranged by their health board, as soon as is practicable, now that Scottish schools have re-opened fully.

Young people and their parents can therefore be reassured that if they have missed their HPV, Meningitis ACWY or Tetanus/Diphtheria/Polio booster vaccines, these will be rescheduled.

Information on the status of the 2020-21 routine and catch-up HPV programmes, by NHS Boards, will be gathered by Public Health Scotland by end of August.

Each of the three specialist centres in Scotland are accredited by the British Society of Gynaecological Endoscopy and to maintain accreditation are required to demonstrate they have the appropriate clinical teams in place. The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many staff are employed in each of the three centres in Scotland or what the average waiting time is for each centre.

We are unable to identify the total number of people who have been diagnosed with endometriosis in the population from routine healthcare data, and therefore cannot provide figures for the required breakdowns (NHS board, age cohort and “deep endometriosis”).

There are 3 specialist endometriosis centres in operation in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow all of which serve patients outside the NHS board area in which they are based.

The Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan (WHP) will be published shortly and includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Work is already underway by the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme, as part of the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, developing a Pelvic Pain Pathway for Scotland, starting with endometriosis.

In the last year, Endometriosis UK were funded by the Scottish Government to carry out research to identify the challenges to diagnosis in primary care and implementation of the National Institute for Healthcare and Excellence (NICE) guidelines on endometriosis. This work has included updating endometriosis content on NHS Inform and the delivery of a webinar to support primary care to implement the NICE guidelines.

Information on the endometriosis waiting times in each NHS board is not currently available. Public Health Scotland are working with officials and Endometriosis UK to analyse national and board-level data to understand what information is available to assess current waiting times and identify future data needs that could be used to measure improvement in waiting times.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how much funding has been provided for endometriosis (b) treatment and (c) care in the last 14 years and how much will be allocated in each of the next five years. This is the responsibility of local NHS boards through their existing NHS budgets.

(a) Research

In recognising the importance of research to improve diagnosis and treatment the CSO has invested £162,000 in a study on laparoscopic treatment of endometriosis based at the University of Edinburgh. It is also funding a £30K Postdoctoral Clinical Lectureship: Precision treatment and drug repurposing to reduce endometriosis-associated pain in women.

Additionally, the CSO contributes financially to United Kingdom-wide research programmes that are run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), which enables researchers in Scotland to apply to those programmes. NIHR have invested £6.8 m to support 4 additional studies on endometriosis, being led from Scotland.

CSO also provides funding (about £66k p.a.) for the NHS Research Scotland Reproductive Health and Childbirth Research Speciality Group to support delivery of high-quality clinical research in Reproductive Health and Childbirth in Scotland, which includes supporting research studies on endometriosis.

Applications looking at the underlying causes, diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through CSO's standard independent peer review process.

The Scottish Government aims to reduce the diagnosis time for endometriosis. The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

While there are no plans at the moment to introduce a waiting time guarantee and standard for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment we will continue to work with people with lived experience, Endometriosis UK and Public Health Scotland to identify realistic targets to measure improvement. The existing waiting times standards and guarantees for elective care continue to apply. NHS Board elective activity continues to remobilise at a safe pace, ensuring capacity remains in place to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as required.

The recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis fall into 4 main categories; a commitment to drive down diagnosis times, to ensure access to appropriate care, awareness and investment in research.

The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of related actions to improve access, for women, to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.