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Arrangements are being put in place to establish the new Council for Economic Transformation, which will shape and drive our 10 year National Strategy for Economic Transformation. We have already publicly committed to do this within the our first 100 days and we will update with regard to progress, including how it interacts with other advisory groups such as the Council for Economic Advisers, shortly.

Network Rails Contractor, SPL, is undertaking on-site activities between Muirhouse South Junction and Busby Junction as part of the East Kilbride / Barrhead Enhancements project. This includes piling and the construction of steelwork foundations to support future electrification.

This demonstrates that positive progress is being made with early construction activities whilst the necessary development work for the complete project is progressed.

Future updates can be sourced via the dedicated project pages in the Scotland’s Railway website:-

https://scotlandsrailway.com/projects/east-kilbride-enhancements

A copy of all local authority returns and an analysis of the returns was published in May 2021. The material was published as part of a Freedom of Information release and the local authority returns and analysis can be found in parts 1 and 2 of the released documentation at: Correspondence relating to counsellors within schools: FOI Release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is aware that Ivermectin, administered orally, is being studied for safety and efficacy in numerous clinical trials worldwide. This includes an exploratory study being conducted within the UK: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04632706 . Potential new therapeutic approaches to COVID-19 are being tested through the UK-wide platform trials, including RECOVERY, PRINCIPLE and REMAP CAP. These trials are active in Scotland and the Scottish Government is closely monitoring the outcomes of these to ensure medicines with the greatest impact in treating COVID-19 are available for patients in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing a new centre of excellence for rural and remote medicine and social care, and will work with a wide range of stakeholders to develop more detailed plans for this centre and associated timescales for delivery.

Medicine administration is primarily recorded on medicine administration record (MAR) charts. The dose/dosage is recorded along with the times for administration. This will either be specific times or it may be words such as breakfast, noon etc. A small number of care homes use an electronic MAR (eMAR) system, where the timing of the medicines is recorded electronically. This can confirm that the resident’s medicines were administered, the time of administration and confirmation of the stock balance.

The Scottish Government and its agencies do not collate or hold information on independently verified livestock predation incidents.

However, as I stated in my answer to S6W-00189 on 11 June 2021, NatureScot has published a report on the predation of lambs by sea eagles which included some analysis of post-mortem results.

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 S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament .

No, in summer 2021 our current vaccination status letters will be replaced by fully digital Covid Status Certificates to be used for outbound international travel. There are no plans at this stage to also use these certificates to introduce Test and Release for inbound international travellers from amber list countries. We are working across the 4 nations to consider the role of Covid Status Certificates for inbound travel .

The Care Inspectorate is the regulatory body for care services in Scotland, which supports improvement. The Care Inspectorate carry out regular comprehensive inspections of all care homes in Scotland, and are accountable to Scottish Ministers. By law all care providers in Scotland must be registered with the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate looks at the quality of care in care services, including care homes to ensure it meets high standards. Where improvement is needed, it supports services to make positive changes.

In addition, as part of the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ the Scottish Government committed to improving the pharmaceutical care of residents in care homes. A Scottish Pharmacy Clinical Leadership Fellow has been appointed and is focussing on key improvement areas such as: developing a national pharmacy care home specialist interest group, reducing medicines waste, undertaking a national audit to determine the pharmacy resource to care homes, developing a pharmacy care home training resource with NES, reviewing how care home residents access medicines and investigating the benefits of using information technology in care homes (for example using electronic medicine administration records (eMAR) and medicines, care and review (MCR).