I, along with my officials, last spoke with the Director of ScotRail on Wednesday 2 November. The meeting discussed ScotRail’s performance over the last week and an update was provided on the initiatives being progressed within the Performance Improvement Plan. In addition, I have engaged with ScotRail weekly to get an update on how performance is trending.

The number of consultant clinical radiologists in NHS Scotland has increased by 43.1 per cent under this Government, to 320.0 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE). The number of therapeutic radiographers has also increased, by 22.1 per cent to 274.2 WTE.

It is not possible to accurately identify all staff defined as ‘radiotherapy specialists’ – either wholly or as part of their role – from centrally held data due to the multi-disciplinary roles involved in the delivery of radiotherapy services.

However, we are continuing to work closely with NHS Boards to support their efforts in recruitment within cancer services to meet the needs of patients, and to deliver a safe and sustainable service.

A range of health care professionals, third sector and advocacy groups were involved during the drafting of the strategy.

Our ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’ strategy and the accompanying
£100 million investment over 5 years, serves as a blueprint for the future of cancer services in Scotland, improving the prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and aftercare of people affected by all cancers. This work links with our tobacco control strategy and the Prevention of Obesity Route Map as evidence shows that smoking and obesity are two of the biggest risk factors for renal cancer.

Ministers and Government officials regularly communicate with representatives of all health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde; to discuss matters of importance to local people. As part of this, any discussions about potential service change take place within the context of the well-established and long-standing process, set out in the national guidance 'Informing, Engaging and Consulting People in Developing Health and Community Care Services' (2010) available at: www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2010_04.pdf

The roles and responsibilities of NHS Boards and Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) in delivering the National Cancer Quality Programme are set out in CEL 6 (2012) which can be found at: http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2012_06.pdf.

This information is not held centrally by Scottish Government.

Additional specialist posts for radiotherapy healthcare professionals will be created over time to meet projected demand. Planning for these including training capacity will be a matter for NHS Boards based on the advice of the recently established radiotherapy subgroup. This group is responsible for identifying and agreeing a national direction of travel for access to modern radiotherapy treatments and agreeing a collaborative approach to delivering these treatments across all five Scottish Cancer Centres.

Individual NHS Boards are not given a savings target, although collectively NHS Boards are expected to deliver efficiency savings equivalent to 3% per annum to be reinvested in NHS care.

Health boards manage their own expenditure and there may be times when a board opts to use local activity as opposed to the national solution that is in place. The Scottish Government does not hold specific details of this as this is managed directly by the Health boards.

The welfare of NHS staff is critically important with every health board required to have policies in place and to comply with national policies on managing health at work. The Scottish Government is actively addressing the sickness absence challenge.

Under this Government, the number of qualified Nurses and Midwives have increased by 5.2% to over 43,100 Whole Time Equivalent.

It is for health boards to plan and deliver clinical services and ensure that they have the correct staff in place to meet the needs of their services and ensure high quality patient care.

This level of sickness absence information is not held centrally. NHS National Services Scotland, Information Services Department collect and publish sickness absence data at a national and board level once a year:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-06-07/Sickness_Absence_M2016.xls