The Scottish Government continues to work with its partners and key stakeholders, including Public Health Scotland, health boards, and across the Four Nations to prepare Scotland to identify and respond to future infectious disease and pandemic threats. This work builds on existing health protection approaches, including the 2011 UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy , and a now enhanced respiratory surveillance programme.

National preparedness arrangements include stockpiles of clinical consumables, PPE, medicines, a contract for access to a pandemic influenza vaccine – and a national pandemic influenza service at 4 Nation level to distribute antivirals. NHS Boards have pandemic flu plans based on guidance – and are also expected to plan locally on a multi-agency basis with Resilience Partnerships and/or HSCPs. The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed last year, giving the Scottish Government new powers to respond to public health emergencies. This includes provisions for education, higher and further education, care services, housing, justice.

The Scottish Government established the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness to bring together scientists and technical experts to advise the Scottish Government on the future risks from pandemics and how best to approach these. The final report will be presented later this year.

While NHS Boards hold the direct responsibility for staffing, we are providing direct investment to assist boards, including those in the South Scotland region, in growing and retaining their workforce. This has included funding to support the recruitment of up to 750 nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals from overseas before April 2023.

In addition, our National Workforce Strategy sets out the actions we will take in partnership with Boards to plan, attract, train, employ and nurture the health and social care workforce.

Preparation for outbreaks of infectious disease is an ongoing part of health protection. That work is led by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care but the breadth of response required to respond to pandemic events is laid out in the 2022 Strategic Framework Update for COVID-19 and the four-harms approach to decision-making used by the Scottish Government for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the UK Government and the other Devolved Administrations on a range of risks including pandemic preparedness. The Scottish Government works closely with the cross-government Pandemic Disease Capabilities Board to keep Scotland’s readiness up to date.

Pandemics and infectious disease threats feature in both Scottish and UK risk assessments which are used to inform our response to these risks.

The remit of the Women’s Health Champion is to drive change and share best practice and innovation in the improvement of health services and health outcomes for women. Professor Glasier will work with partners in the NHS and across the public and third sectors to drive forward the ambitions, aims and actions in the Women’s Health Plan. Professor Glasier’s particular priorities were set out in the recently published report on progress and include specialist menopause services, menstrual health with a focus on endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome, and heart health.

The Champion is a member of the Women's Health Plan Implementation Programme Board which has been established to oversee and drive the delivery of the Plan.

Professor Glasier is scheduled to attend the next Women’s Health Cross Party Group on 22 March 2023. In addition a number of introductory meetings with both individuals and organisations have already taken place, with more arranged for the coming weeks. Any requests should be directed to womenshealthchampion@gov.scot.

The adopted National Planning Framework (NPF4) (2023) is clear that transport assessments (TAs) are required for development proposals that will generate a significant increase in the number of person trips. These should consider transport requirements in line with the sustainable travel and investment hierarchies, which includes road traffic. Transport Scotland’s Transport Assessment guidance sets the scope for these assessments, which are reviewed by the relevant roads authority as part of the planning decision making process.

Where a proposed development affects the Trunk Road Network, Transport Scotland is a statutory consultee in the planning process. Transport Scotland will only recommend consent of a development where there is sufficient information provided within the TA to demonstrate that the development will not have a significant impact on the trunk road network.

Patient care and service delivery are the statutory responsibility of local healthcare providers. NHS Boards are responsible for working with their partners to plan and provide health services which meet the needs of their populations. Use of the independent sector has been an option open to all Health Boards to help address short-term capacity issues and is an operational decision for them.

However, through Scottish Government investment, we continue to engage and support Boards to build their workforce and implement the National CAMHS Service Specification. The Scottish Government allocated around £40 million to improve CAMHS and Neurodevelopmental services for children and young people in 2021-22, and has invested £46 million in 2022-23 via the Mental Health Outcomes Framework to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all. The priorities for the funding this financial year have been to continue delivering improvements in CAMHS, psychological therapies, eating disorders and neurodevelopmental services for children and young people, as well as ongoing innovation and service reform.

As a result of our investment over recent years, CAMHS staffing has increased significantly. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) publishes quarterly statistics on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce. The publication on 6 December 2022 showed, as of September 2022, the CAMHS community staff Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) was 1259 compared to 900.3 WTE in March 2021, when significant investment in CAMHS was made. This represents a 39.8% increase.

Network Rail is initiating a tendering process to secure a contractor to deliver the Troon railway station project, which will provide clarity on the overall costs of the redevelopment. The proposed station includes provision for staff and the sale of tickets. Further information on the plans for the station, including timescales, can be found on the Scotland’s Railway website .

A detailed analysis of public transport accessibility for the residents of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders was undertaken as part of the South West Transport Study ( swsts-inital-appraisal-case-for-change-including-appendices.pdf (transport.gov.scot) and Borders Transport Corridors Study ( borders-transport-corridors-pre-appraisal-report.pdf ).

The assessment included consideration of public transport accessibility, both by bus and rail, to a range of key employment, health and education destinations within the region and also to major towns and cities in Scotland and the north of England. In both cases, the assessment used a number of metrics, including the outputs from a bespoke analysis tool using Geographic Information System software to assist with the task.

Further details of both these assessments can be found respectively in Sections 5.5 of the South West Scotland Transport Study report and Section 3.5.10 of the Borders Transport Corridors Study report.

The outcomes of this work were then taken forward in to the Second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), which was published on 8 December 2022. The above projects were designed as advanced studies for each of these STPR2 regions and were, in fact, two of only three regions in Scotland to benefit from this advanced work. The outcomes were subsequently refined and updated to comprise the STPR2 Case for Change reports for each region, potential interventions were then subjected to more detailed assessment during the STPR2 appraisal process.