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The NHS Recovery Plan Update published on 4 October provides an overview of progress during the first year since its publication and identifies key risks, such as high levels of uncertainty on the future trajectory of Covid-19 and its potential for increased Covid related pressures on the system, and mitigations. However, the ambitious targets to increase planned care capacity set out in the NHS Recovery Plan remain a key commitment.

Of the additional 55,000 inpatient / daycase procedures by 2025/26 committed to in the NHS Recovery Plan, 40,000 is expected to come from the National Treatment Centres (NTCs). In 2023, three NTCs in NHS Fife, NHS Forth Valley and NHS Highland are due to open, along with the completed expansion of the NHS Golden Jubilee University National Hospital. In the first year of opening, these centres are projected to deliver an additional 12,250 procedures. This is in addition to the procedures delivered at the National Eye Centre which opened in November 2020.

In addition to the NTCs, we are working closely with the NHS Boards and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) on accelerating implementation of improvement programmes across all NHS Boards to maximise capacity, reduce variation and increase theatre efficiencies, including Active Clinical Referral Treatment and Patient Initiated Review, freeing up additional capacity in the NHS system. We are also developing ‘Once for Scotland’ pathways, harnessing all opportunities to deliver patient care in the right place and closer to home, this includes maximising day case procedures to avoid any unnecessary stays in hospital.

We are continuing to work closely with Boards with NTC projects currently under development and will define when the additional capacity will come on stream as part of the ongoing business case development.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-11493 on 26 October 2022 and S6T00915 on 25 October 2022.

The answer to Topical Question S6T-00915 can be found here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-25-10-2022?meeting=13939&iob=126317#16180

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The health and welfare of all displaced people from Ukrainian staying in Scotland remains our priority.

The Scottish Government Mental Health directorate worked closely with our partners such as Heads of Psychology Scotland, NHS Scotland, COSLA, the Scottish Refugee Council, amongst others, to develop and then publish wellbeing packs for displaced people from Ukraine arriving in Scotland. There was a specific pack full of helpful resources and guidance for displaced people from Ukraine on physiological wellbeing – Ukraine psychological wellbeing advice pack: guidance for Ukrainian arrivals - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

We've amended legislation so there will be no charge for NHS Scotland services for people who have fled Ukraine, services such as maternity care, mental health services and treatment for specific conditions.

Anyone in Scotland, regardless of their nationality, residence status or length of time they will be in the country, is already entitled to receive emergency treatment at an A&E or casualty department, and can register with a GP Practice to receive general medical services, at no charge.

We continue to take forward a range of actions in schools, including the Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme, which tackles gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls; and piloting a whole school approach to tackling gender-based violence with Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance.

The Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group is developing a national framework document for schools to help tackle sexual harassment and gender-based violence. This will set out the practical prevention and intervention measures that can be used to ensure the safety, health and wellbeing of children and young people. This work is expected to be completed in 2023.

On 22 September 2022 we published spending at Independence referendum Supreme Court referral: legal costs - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Of that £113,824.04 was spent on counsel. There has been no spending on external solicitors. An additional £350 has been spent on Supreme Court filing fees.

We will be publishing updated costs of the reference in December.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the uptake of free school meals broken down by year group.

The Schools Healthy Living Survey Supplementary Statistics provides a breakdown of school meal uptake by pupils in primary, secondary and special schools dating back to 2006. Previous School Healthy Living Survey Supplementary Statistics datasets, back to 2012, are available through the following web link: School Healthy Living Survey supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The uptake of free school meals as a percentage of the total number of pupils since 2006 is contained within the following table:

Free School Meals uptake by school sector 2006-2022

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11467 on 8 November 2022. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The latest statistics on average number of available, staffed hospital beds, including for acute specialties, is published in ‘Table 4 - beds.xlsx’ within Public Health Scotland’s annual acute hospital activity and NHS beds publication (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ ).

The Ardrossan Task Force is expected to meet in December 2022.