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The individual clinical management of patients is a matter for territorial health boards. We do however expect that all patients are treated and cared for in a person centred way. When there are no SIGN guideline in place, NHS Boards and Integration Authorities may choose to consider other relevant guideline such as those of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the planning and delivery of services.

In Scotland we use the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, which were revised and published in 2019. These national guidelines are based on clinical evidence and review to help support clinicians across the country to refer those patients who are most likely to have cancer, including myeloma, into diagnostic services swiftly.

While pharmacy closures can occur, this on the whole represents a small proportion of the network and is often limited to a small proportion of the required model hours. The Scottish Government continue to work with all Health Boards and community pharmacies representatives who are responsible for the provision of local pharmaceutical care services to ensure that any challenges faced by community pharmacies in providing the safe and effective dispensing of treatments are discussed with the local Health Board to minimise impact and risk to patients. Health boards can take a range of actions in response to any breach of terms by a pharmacy contractor.

The Scottish Government is aware of a backlog affecting a small number of cases with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) while they recover from the effects of the Covid pandemic. The SPSO is a wholly independent office, not subject to the direction or control of the Scottish Government. We are aware however that the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body has agreed to supply of extra resources and recruitment of more staff which is allowing the SPSO to resource their COVID recovery plan. Further details can be found on the SPSO website.

The Scottish Government does not consider setting a nationwide target for sustainable deer populations to be the most effective method of meeting our Biodiversity Strategy targets for 2030. Our approach is to assess and identify priority areas where there is evidence of, or a high risk of deer damage, to ensure deer management efforts are focused and coordinated where there is the greatest need.

We set out our commitment to modernising Scotland's systems of deer management in response to the independent Deer Working Group and work is being taken forward as part of our new deer project. This project sits under the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Programme Board and work is being taken forward via four workstreams focusing on: legislation; regulation; incentives; and operational delivery.

There are a number of routes that developers of a new medical device may follow, in order to pursue NHSScotland approval. As a test for early cancer detection, Trucheck would fall within the remit of the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG), which is a national Heath Technology Assessment (HTA) agency based within Healthcare Improvement Scotland. SHTG advice is developed following a request for evidence support on issues facing health and social care services. The SHTG has not provided advice on the use of Trucheck to date.

Scottish Government have just released in Beta form, Scotland Innovates ( www.innovator.scot). Scotland Innovates allows suppliers and citizens to submit proposals to the entire public sector in Scotland that could potentially create innovate goods and services and bring benefit to our citizens. Advice is available on the site regarding the possible submission of a proposal.

The medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulates medical devices in the UK, we recommend that medical devices are registered with MHRA prior to placing the device on the UK market.

The National Mission has been set out for the five years of this Parliament and with it comes a commitment to fund the MAT standards. I have previously given Parliament and delivery partners assurance that funding is to be used for Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships and front-line services to support local areas in meeting the MAT standards. Initial funding of £6 million was provided to Health Boards on 1 March 2022 following discussions with Integration Authorities on the appropriate amount required to deliver the initial set of objectives.

Funding requirements for meeting the MAT standards for 2022/2023 and beyond was agreed with ADPs between January and April 2022 as being over £10 million per year for the next 4 years, to supplement the initial £6 million. The formal notification letter for 2022-23 was sent out to Integration Authorities and Health Boards in June 2022. Health Boards will draw down additional funding for 2022-23 as and when the initial funding has been utilised.

‘Care co-ordinator’ is a recognised term used in NHS England for staff who coordinate care in Primary Care Networks. These networks bring together GP practices to mutually employ staff. They do not exist in Scotland where GP practices are organised into clusters for peer support and health boards directly employ the wider multidisciplinary team. While the term ‘care coordinator’ is sometimes used in Scotland, it is used generically to describe staff co-ordinating care across more than just primary care settings.

As such, the Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on the numbers of full-time equivalents related to this broad range of posts in each territorial NHS Board area.

The Scottish Government is committed to early diagnosis which is why we continue to invest in our £44 million Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme. In 2021-22, DCE funded the North Cancer Alliance to support community pharmacy in the identification of patients with symptoms suspicious of cancer and, where necessary, prompt referral to an urgent suspicion of cancer (USC) pathway.

Learnings from this early work will be shared with the Early Cancer Diagnosis Programme Board and help inform possible wider roll-out across NHS Scotland.

A new early cancer diagnosis vision is under development as part of Scotland’s new cancer strategy, due to be published Spring 2023, and will consider the role of community pharmacies in supporting earlier diagnosis efforts.

Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is non-prescriptive in nature, allowing teachers and schools to judge the context for learning that best suits their learners and their individual circumstances. Therefore decisions about which pedagogies to use are for schools and local authorities to determine, in line with CfE.

Although we do not collect the specific data requested, play pedagogy is encouraged and utilised to support the social, emotional, physical and cognitive development of young children in a developmentally appropriate way at the early level of Curriculum for Excellence, from early learning and childcare(ELC) and into the early stages of Scotland’s primary schools.

In 2020 the Scottish Government and Education Scotland published ‘Realising the Ambition: Being Me – Practice Guidance for the Early Years in Scotland’. This guidance for practitioners in early learning and childcare and the early years of primary school updates, extends and strengthens the approaches to active learning and play introduced in ‘Building the Curriculum 2’ (2007). ‘Realising the Ambition’ reflects current evidence and the progress made in understanding how best to support learning and care for children in their early years.

In July 2022 Education Scotland updated the online Early Level Play Pedagogy Toolkit. The toolkit was co-produced with Scottish practitioners and complements the quality improvement support Education Scotland is providing in collaboration with Regional Improvement Collaboratives and local authorities. The toolkit aims to support a deeper understanding of play pedagogy and increase the confidence of early level practitioners (including those in schools) in using play effectively to support children’s learning and development.

Procurement of the MVA vaccine is being managed by UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on a 4 nations basis. Scotland has secured a limited supply of 3,000 doses so far and will have access to more stock once it becomes available.

UKSHA have procured a further 100,000 vaccines that will be arriving in September. Date of arrival and details on Scotland’s share are still to be confirmed.