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As postgraduate medical students do not form part of the controlled medical school intake the Scottish Government is unable to respond.

Universities are independent, autonomous institutions responsible for their own selection procedures and offers, with intake numbers and the breakdown of these a decision for each individual medical schools.

Student nurses entering Scottish Government funded degree programmes will increase by 9% in 2022-23, to a total recommended intake of 4536 students. This will be the 10 th successive increase in recommended student numbers, with the intake doubling over the last decade. We anticipate most of these students will be eligible for the Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary.

Every year, the Scottish Government undertakes a robust nursing student intake planning process to determine the target number of pre-registration students to which Scottish universities should recruit to in the following academic year to meet estimated future nursing workforce demands.

The Programme for Government (PfG) 2021 commits to expanding medical school places by at least 100 per annum over this lifetime of this Parliament and doubling the number of widening access places. The medical undergraduate intake for 2022-23 has been set at 1317, of which it is anticipated that 1,239 students will be Scots/UK/ROI or Gibraltar and 78 will be international including EU. This intake represents an increase of 200 places above the 2021/22 intake target of 1,117 thereby delivering the first two tranches of the PfG commitment.

The Scottish Government is committed to growing the number of Scottish domiciled students studying medicine at Scottish universities as a policy priority through widening access and other targeted interventions. Places reserved for widening access students are being increased by 30 (bringing the total to 90) and pre-medical entry places are being increased by 20 (bringing the total to 70 places) in 2022-23.

Intake targets for 2023-24 and 2024-25 have not yet been set but will be considered in light of the PfG commitment.

Attrition rates vary each year across all degree programmes, it is therefore not possible to predict attrition rates for future cohorts. However, we have observed that course completion rates for pre-registration nursing programmes have been steadily improving year-on-year, and we anticipate that this trend will continue.

Prestwick Airport Station is owned by Prestwick Airport therefore it is not operated by ScotRail albeit passenger services do call there. Therefore, while Ministers and aviation officials routinely engage with representatives of Glasgow Prestwick Airport, discussions did not centre on ScotRail coming into public sector control at any point, including the period December 2019 and March 2022.

During this timeframe there was, however, appropriate consideration by Transport Scotland and ScotRail in the context of the transition from Abellio ScotRail to ScotRail Trains Ltd.

The Scottish Government does not have the information which has been requested.

Patient safety is a key priority for the Scottish Government. We are taking forward a programme of work aimed at preventing harm as a result of sodium valproate, and also ensuring that those who have been impacted receive the care they need.

The Scottish Government regularly consult with trade unions on matters impacting the workforce, in line with our partnership agreement, and have notified them of enhanced recruitment controls being put in place. We remain committed to making the best and most efficient use of our resources.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. The various charges that such crimes could be prosecuted under do not allow for the age of the abused to be determined.

The Scottish Government gives full consideration to ensuring all human rights obligations are stringently assessed and observed for all Police Scotland requests for overseas deployments, including to Colombia. For our part, the Scottish Government condemns human rights abuses wherever they occur and has always been clear that Scottish public authorities, including Police Scotland, should act to promote human rights and to challenge poor practice in the context of any engagement with overseas partners

Police Scotland complete an Overseas Security and Justice Assistance assessment prior to any approach to the Scottish Government to ensure that all activity is consistent with all domestic and international human rights obligations. All Police Scotland engagement with Colombia has been undertaken with the full support of the British Embassy in Bogota, and the UN International Organization for Migration (UN IOM). Safeguards have been built in to the arrangements for the deployment so that appropriate action can be taken should any human rights concerns be identified by Police Scotland officers. These are as follows:

• All interventions by Police Scotland incorporate measures to reduce the risk of human rights violations.
• Training on Human Rights is incorporated into all courses and interventions.
• Police Scotland retains and provides for reduction, suspension or stopping assistance, if they identify any human rights concerns.
• Police Scotland staff are specifically briefed to raise participants’ awareness that good practice respects human rights at every opportunity.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of measuring post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infections, or long COVID, in Scotland. This is needed to help forecast and plan the provision of healthcare services for people experiencing long COVID.

Currently the best source of data about people with long COVID in Scotland is the monthly Office for National Statistics (ONS) reporting on ‘Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK’. The ONS survey sample is weighted to represent people aged two years and over living in private households in the UK. This contrasts with the ZOE COVID Symptoms Study, whose participants are self-selecting and are not necessarily representative of the whole population.

The most recent ONS monthly report, published on 6 May 2022, covers the four-week period ending 3 April 2022 ( Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) ). It showed that in Scotland:

• An estimated 151,000 people (2.88%) of the private residential population, who had (or suspected they had) COVID-19, self-reported experiencing long COVID of any duration .
• An estimated 105,000 people (2.00%) of the private residential population, who had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously , self-reported experiencing long COVID.
• An estimated 64,000 people (1.22%) of the private residential population, who had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 months previously , self-reported experiencing long COVID.

It is estimated that self-reported long COVID symptoms were adversely affecting the day-to-day activities of 107,000 people in private households in Scotland with long COVID of any duration, with an estimated 36,000 of these individuals reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been limited a lot.

Going forward, Public Health Scotland will lead on surveillance of long COVID. It is currently anticipated that this will be undertaken via the EAVE II study, described below.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office has funded nine research projects designed to improve our understanding of the longer term effects of long COVID. Three projects focus on measuring the prevalence and symptoms of long COVID. All started in early 2021 and will run for two years.

LTE2015.pdf (scot.nhs.uk) ‘Developing and validating a risk prediction model for long COVID-19’. Undertaken by the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with Public Health Scotland, this research uses the EAVE II study, originally funded by the Medical Research Council ( An Introduction to EAVE II | The University of Edinburgh ). EAVE II used a pseudonymised patient dataset to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland. This dataset will now be used to create a tool to identify people at greatest risk of developing long COVID. In the course of developing that tool, the research will generate data about the number of people in Scotland diagnosed with long COVID and their use of health services.

lte2006.pdf (scot.nhs.uk) ‘Defining and understanding the longer-term effects of COVID-19: a mixed methods study exploring the frequency, nature, and impact of ‘long COVID’ in the Scottish population’. Undertaken by the university of Glasgow, this study will identify how many people continue to be unwell, their symptoms, and how it affects their lives. Scottish adults who had a positive COVID-19 test, and a negative test comparison group, will be sent an SMS message inviting them to take part in the study. If they agree, they will answer questions about their health before and after COVID-19, and any effect on their lives, with the questions repeated at regular intervals.

LTE2008.pdf (scot.nhs.uk) ‘COVID-19: Tracking Persistent Symptoms in Scotland (TraPSS)’ – undertaken by the University of the West of Scotland. This project aims to improve our understanding of long COVID in the Scottish population, and particularly in people whose original symptoms were relatively mild. The current evidence describing the types of symptoms other studies have reported will be reviewed, and people will be surveyed at different stages of recovery to find out what kinds of persistent symptoms they have.