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The mental health support for police officers and police staff is a matter for the Chief Constable.

In line with Police Scotland’s ‘People Strategy 2024–27’, a ‘Health and Wellbeing Action Plan’ was developed by Police Scotland to provide officers and staff with a range of tools and services that will enable them to take positive action in relation to their health and wellbeing.

In relation to pay for officers and staff, claims are currently being taken through the appropriate negotiating mechanisms, those being, the Police Negotiating Board for Scotland (PNBS) for Police Officers and the Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee (JNCC) for Police Staff. The PNBS is undertaking a period of conciliation and if agreement can still not be reached, the two Sides of the PNBS would enter into an arbitration process through ACAS. Police Staff pay is also going through a process of negotiation and conciliation; this is a matter for Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority.

The Scottish Government is providing financial support for buildings with known cladding issues through the Cladding Remediation Programme.

The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 addresses the risks posed by unsafe cladding on residential buildings. This legislation gives Scottish Ministers the power to assess and remediate buildings with unsafe cladding, establish a Cladding Assurance Register, and create schemes requiring developers to contribute to remediation costs. The Act is expected to be commenced in early 2025.

The Scottish Government’s Cladding Remediation Programme Pilot utilised a self-nomination process to identify buildings, of different tenures, that are potentially affected by unsafe cladding. For the Pilot, the Scottish Government funded Pilot Single Building Assessments to test the concept and deliverability of the Assessment. Following the introduction of the Act we have introduced Single Building Assessments (SBA).

The Scottish Government will continue to fund assessment and remediation where no linked developer can be identified. The level of financial support that will be needed is determined by the comprehensive SBA assessment. We continue to publish spend information for the programme which can be accessed here

Single Building Assessment programme: spending information (gov.scot)

The number of treatments (including enhanced examinations) is compiled on the basis of claims made to Practitioner Services for payment within agreed working schedules and monthly activity is therefore not always presented on a directly comparable basis. For example, the September payment schedule period contained 20 working days which is lower than the average schedule period (c.24 working days), resulting in a small reduction to prior months’ claims.

Practitioners Services will periodically close the schedules to allow other payments to be made to dentists, such as quarterly allowance payments.

I remain clear that long waits are unacceptable and that is why in the Programme for Government we reaffirmed our commitment to meet the CAMHS standard and clear backlogs by December 2025.

While we will work to ensure no child will wait to start treatment longer than 18 weeks there may be occasions where children and young people wait over 18-weeks to start treatment. This may be out with the NHS Board’s control, such as those who have significantly complex presentations and require very specific services.

I am as committed as ever to meeting the waiting times standard for psychological therapies and to clearing waiting list backlogs as confirmed in our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

The Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2017 allows schools across the United Kingdom, including independent schools, to buy and hold spare adrenaline auto-injector (AAI) devices without the need for a prescription to treat anaphylaxis in schools in emergency situations where a pupil’s own prescribed device is either not working correctly, or is otherwise unavailable.

We published guidance on supporting children and young people with healthcare needs in schools in December 2017. Information on support for pupils at risk of anaphylaxis is covered within Annex B of this guidance.

The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities through a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on providing AAI devices to schools, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Government expects NHS Health Boards to manage those in need of adult allergy services according to local needs and deliver these services to provide high quality care that is safe, effective, and person-centred.

Children and Young People in Scotland can access dedicated allergy services through the National Managed Clinical Allergy Network (CYANS). CYANS has published a guideline on the diagnosis and management of food allergies in children, based on national guidelines. Further information can be found at: About Us – Children and Young People's Allergy Network Scotland (nhs.scot).

The Scottish Government is working closely with NHS Education Scotland (NES), who are responsible for managing all training provided to doctors in Scotland.

Allergy awareness is an integral part of all medical curricula, particularly in recognising and managing anaphylaxis. Foundation doctors also receive relevant training. Additionally, two new training pathways have been developed for Allergy and Immunology: Allergy | The Federation

• Allergy and Clinical Immunology (ACI)
• Allergy, Clinical and Laboratory Immunology (ACLI)

Turas learn also hosts a number of useful resources in relation to allergy awareness for healthcare professionals: Turas Learn - Allergy

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with an allergy, are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

The latest published data shows that there were 302 patients waiting for a new outpatient allergy appointment as of 30 September 2024, with a median waiting time of 40 days and 78.5% of waits within the 12 week New Outpatient standard.

While this is welcome progress, I recognise there is more to be done. We continue to target resources to clear the longest waits and are working with all boards to maximise current resources and productivity.

The Scottish Government are not seeking to increase the number of plans for individual health conditions and are therefore not developing a national allergy strategy. Rather, we are focussed on how we can best support Health Boards to deliver high quality, value-based, person-centred care for all people, irrespective of condition.