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This publication’s Supporting Documents include a spreadsheet file titled ‘General Practice recorded diagnoses’. Table 4 in this spreadsheet shows GP recorded diagnoses of neurological conditions, by sex and age. For each neurological condition shown, it gives the number of GP recorded diagnoses by sex in the following age bands: 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19. This data is shown in the following table. In some cases small numbers have been suppressed to help maintain patient confidentiality. We do not have data apportioned to the exact age bands in the question.

Number of people diagnosed with ME/CFS by sex and age group

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce, taking into account previous recommendations and learning from the pandemic. The Public Health Scotland (PHS) and Scottish Directors of Public Health Localised Working Programme is currently working with three pathfinder sites to improve local access to specialist public health advice and forms a collaboration between PHS, local health boards and joint partners, including COSLA. The programme aims to achieve better outcomes for communities through leading and supporting action on inequalities and the determinants of health.

A recent review of the Scottish Health Protection Network has also identified learning from the pandemic and considered how to ensure a strengthened health protection function for Scotland going forward.

The Scottish Government fully supports Food Standards Scotland (FSS) winter campaign to raise awareness of vitamin D and to encourage people to take vitamin D supplements to maintain bone and muscle health.

The campaign will run until February 2023 and builds on the previous FSS social media campaigns and other work by FSS, Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland to raise awareness of vitamin D. A campaign toolkit is available and we continue to encourage stakeholders to share and promote the campaign messages.

The National Clinical Skills for pharmacists programme supports registered pharmacists take on new and extended clinical roles, however it is the Independent Prescriber course which allows community pharmacists to qualify as Independent Prescribers. In 2020-2021 NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) commissioned a total of 115 Independent Prescriber (IP) places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2021.

In 2021-2022 NES commissioned a total of 222 IP places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2022.

The Pharmacist Independent Prescribing qualification takes on average 12 months to complete and courses run 4 times a year, therefore to date 111 community pharmacists from these cohorts have qualified as an Independent Prescriber.

An expert Menopause and Menstrual Health Policy Working Group has been established to progress this action.

We understand the importance of appropriate staffing to provide high quality care for people with chronic pain. As set out in our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care published in March 2022, we are committed to supporting the delivery of new training pathways for pain management to enhance and expand our pain-skilled workforce.

In July 2022 we published our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which sets out the actions we are taking to improve care and support for people with chronic pain, including through developing the pain management workforce. In support of this we have established a new national multi-disciplinary Chronic Pain Education Group which is focused on developing and promoting resources to enhance the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals across Scotland.

In addition, we are working with the Faculty for Pain Medicine to support the development of new credentials to increase the availability of pain management specialists across our NHS. We are also supporting work to develop a credential for Advanced Care Practitioners in pain management which will support GPs, paramedics, Allied Healthcare Professionals and other key roles gain the knowledge and skills to provide holistic, effective support for people with chronic pain in their communities.

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. A programme of leadership development has already started with local Directors and Deputy Directors of Public Health, along with Public Health Scotland, working with Scottish Government. A further programme of succession planning will be developed this year.

Scottish Directors of Public Health have been prioritised within the Scottish Government Leading to Change Programme for bespoke and sustainable leadership development support. Their knowledge, expertise and leadership are recognised as central to Scotland’s success in the recovery and re-building of the health of the nation post COVID.

Within Leading to Change we are also developing a programme of NHS Board CEO, Executive and Director Succession Planning. The Succession Planning workstream aims to create a diverse, values driven senior health workforce, by supporting existing and aspiring CEOs, Executives and Directors, and developing and implementing a consistent national approach to NHS Board Succession Planning that ensures a pipeline of candidates for future senior leadership roles, who are equipped to realise our ambitions as set out in the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan. We have created a Leadership Success Profile (LSP) for NHS CEO roles and will be creating an LSP for Executive and Director level roles in early 2023.

The Bioenergy Expert Panel is still to be assembled. However, in the meantime, interested stakeholders and expert parties can engage with policy officials. Stakeholders can get in touch via email: Stephen.Corrie@gov.scot

The Statement of Dental Remuneration has been amended over the time period since January 2017 and now. The list of treatments in January 2017 is reflected in Amendment 133 and the current list is described in 158. These can be viewed at Statement of Dental Remuneration | Scottish Dental .

In summary, the range of care and treatment is broadly similar in both versions, however, a significant reform was delivered in February 2022 (amendment 155) which aligned child and adult examination appointments through an enhanced fee.

Oil and gas exploration and production, including licensing, remains reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government is clear that unlimited extraction of fossil fuels is not consistent with our climate obligations and is not the right solution to the real cost of living crisis families are facing. To reduce energy costs we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. This means investing more in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

We are also supporting the fastest possible just transition for the energy sector and the oil and gas workforce, the communities in which they live and work, and the regional economies that have greatly benefited from oil and gas activities and have much to gain from the transition to net zero.

Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan was published for consultation on 10 January 2023.