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From November 2020 to October 2021 a total of 551 delegate places of clinical skills training for pharmacists were delivered. 126 delegate places of clinical skills training for pharmacists were delivered from November 2021 to end of December 2021 and a further 316 delegate places of clinical skills training for pharmacists were delivered between January and March 2022.

These clinical skills training days are delivered by NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) as part of the Pharmacist Clinical Skills training contract. NES organise and run courses to support pharmacist prescribers and those in training to develop appropriate clinical skills, at both core and advanced levels.

In 2021-2022 NES have also to date commissioned a total of 244 Independent Prescriber training places (116 for Community/78 for Primary Care/50 for Hospital).

Questions S6W-07586 and S6W-07587 have been combined for response.

The Programme for Government (2021) outlined the Scottish Government’s proposal to bring forward a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill during this Parliamentary session. This will consider the best way to ensure the interests of future generations are taken into account in decisions made today. The proposed Bill will therefore put duties on public bodies and local government to take account of the impact of their decisions on sustainable development, in Scotland and internationally. We intend to set out more detailed proposals later this year.

Through the development of the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines on chronic pain in adults and children and young people , Scotland has been a world-leader in promoting evidence-based approaches for healthcare professionals to improve standards of care and management of chronic pain.

The Programme for Government 2020-21 committed to developing and publishing a new Framework for Chronic Pain Service Delivery. A draft Framework was published for public consultation and the responses are currently being analysed. We will publish our response to the findings, including how these views have been used to shape the final Framework, later this year.

The draft Framework sets out the Scottish Government’s aim to ensure that people have a choice of treatments for chronic pain, where there is evidence they are effective, underpinned by commitments to support patients and healthcare professionals to better understand and agree effective options to manage pain. This is intended to lead to less variation in the quality and availability of services for people with chronic pain.

As part of implementation of the Framework, we will explore opportunities to update the existing guidelines to ensure they reflect the most recent evidence and best practice, including offering new treatments where there is evidence that they are effective.

Questions S6W-07586 and S6W-07587 have been combined for response.

The Programme for Government (2021) outlined the Scottish Government’s proposal to bring forward a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill during this Parliamentary session. This will consider the best way to ensure the interests of future generations are taken into account in decisions made today. The proposed Bill will therefore put duties on public bodies and local government to take account of the impact of their decisions on sustainable development, in Scotland and internationally. We intend to set out more detailed proposals later this year.

The Scottish Government welcomes the recently published Inclusion Health Partnership report ‘Understanding the lived experience of Covid-19 for marginalised communities’. We recognise the importance of the issues covered in this report and we will be giving full and proper consideration to each of the recommendations, and how these interact and inform current and planned future activity.

The report itself, and its recommendations, cover a range of issues and areas. We are fully aware that Covid-19 has had a disproportionate impact on certain communities, and work has been ongoing for some time across Government to ensure that we fully understand the impact on those that have been hardest hit, whilst taking forward appropriate action to support marginalised communities. This includes, but is not limited to, our continued efforts to prevent homelessness by strengthening our collaboration between health and homelessness services, whilst similar work is also underway to improve health services for refugees and asylum seekers, ensuring that everyone who is a resident in Scotland is entitled to access high quality, person centred healthcare. The content of this report will further contribute to our learning and our ongoing work, particularly as we work to address the issues and challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

The report also highlights the valuable insights of those from affected communities, and it is crucial that we listen to those messages, and act on them. The importance of having an ongoing dialogue with impacted individuals and communities has already been emphasised by commitments in both our Programme for Government and Covid Recovery Strategy to further embed lived experience in our policy design.

We will legislate to bring into force the remaining outstanding tenant farming provisions, contained within Part 10 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, including section 99 – removing the requirement for tenant farmers to register an interest in the pre-emptive right to buy, during this Parliament.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the location or number of public electric bike charging points in Scotland. Individual local authorities may hold this information for their respective areas.

Since personal e-bike batteries can be readily removed and charged from household socket outlets, we currently have no evidence that the absence of dedicated public e-bike charging facilities for personal e-bikes is a barrier to use in the same way as for electric vehicles. However, e-bike charging provision is an emerging topic so we remain alert to evolving circumstances and we will be working with our partners to assess charging needs and demands.

The updated Climate Change Plan (CCPu) introduced a chapter on Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), and accompanied this with a commitment to review progress for developing NETs. Policies in this chapter place a focus on developing the evidence base for NETs to be deployed at the end of the decade, and assessing the feasibility of various technologies.

We are making progress on developing our evidence base. As we made clear to the committee in our response in March 2021, should a need arise for a ‘Plan B’, there is flexibility to adjust sector pathways and reassign any abatement to other sectors.

We will continue to review our progress and evidence as we work towards the next full Climate Change Plan, a draft of which we will make available to Parliament by November 2023 at the latest.

The amount self-funders pay for their care home costs is a contractual matter between the individual and their care home provider. This agreement is protected by consumer protection laws.

Guidance on Social Care is on the Scottish Government website: Social care support - Social care - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Further guidance on free personal and nursing care can be found here - Care Support and Rights.dot (scot.nhs.uk)

The monitoring of new and potentially dangerous variants is absolutely critical as we move into a new phase of the pandemic. For this reason, the Scottish Government is working with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to develop a comprehensive Respiratory Surveillance Plan and implement programmes to detect respiratory pathogens at a population level. In addition, a Variants and Mutations Plan is being developed that sets out an approach to manage new variants detected through surveillance programmes. PHS intends to publish these plans in Spring 2022.

Surveillance is a critical part of our approach to monitoring and managing the spread and prevalence of Covid-19 and other respiratory viruses. It helps us to determine the right public health strategies and timing to manage transmission in the community. The Surveillance Plan will set out existing and new and emerging surveillance programme that will be used to support early identification of future variants, including community surveillance in primary and secondary care, whole genome sequencing and wastewater surveillance.

In addition, Public Health Scotland will continue to participate in the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), GISAID and the UKHSA Variant Technical Group. These surveillance and horizon scanning activities have been used during the COVID-19 pandemic to rapidly share intelligence internationally and provide early warnings of new variants and track their spread globally.