The Scottish Government understand the importance of sport and physical activity for women and girls in Scotland and the positive impact that has on their physical, mental, and social health. Football plays a key role in this because it has a reach into communities like no other sport, and participation levels in women and girls football are at record levels.

The Scottish Government supports the Scottish FA in making football accessible for all and believes in the power of football in bringing communities together. We are also keen to support the SWPL in promoting and improving the elite women’s game to help encourage more women and girls into the sport.

Produced in partnership with UEFA, the Scottish FA’s Accelerate Our Game strategy has been designed to a provide focus to the Scottish FA’s commitment to progress the girls’ and women’s game in Scotland. The strategy aims to harness the power of women’s football by changing perceptions and empowering people to inspire the nation, whilst developing and promoting women’s football for all, enabling current and future generations to enjoy our national game equally.

In addition, the Scottish FA leads three key programmes targeting girl’s football:

• UEFA Disney Playmakers
• KDM Soccer Centres
• SPAR Future Stars Cup Square

Furthermore, sportscotland works in partnership with all 32 local authorities to invest in and support the Active Schools Network. Active Schools aims to provide more and higher quality opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity before school, during lunchtime and after school, and to develop effective pathways between schools and sports clubs in the local community. In the 2022-23 academic year, football was the second most popular activity for girls within the Active Schools programme, with girls and young women making 379,944 visits to Active Schools football sessions.

The Women’s Health Plan sets out that healthcare for women should be holistic, inclusive, respectful, centred around the individual and responsive to their needs and choices.

In 2023, we carried out research on ‘Women's experiences of discrimination and the impact on health ’ so that we can better understand the lived experience of women and girls in Scotland and the discrimination they have experienced when seeking healthcare.

Through the Women’s Health Platform on NHS Inform we have created resources that can be used by women and girls and healthcare professionals to support shared decision making and a patient centred approach. This includes symptom questionnaires on menopause and menstrual health and clinical tools such as the Endometriosis Care Pathway and the Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Pathway to support informed discussions and provide better understanding of the next steps on a healthcare journey.

We have also funded the development of educational resources to support health professionals to learn more about menstrual health, endometriosis and menopause, the symptoms and treatment options.

While the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, it is NHS Boards and healthcare professionals locally who have responsibility for both service delivery and ensuring people receive the right care for them, taking into account relevant guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment.

It is therefore for NHS Boards to determine what clinical interventions they offer, while giving regard to the considerations above.

The majority of Scottish health boards participated in the 2022 UK Parkinson’s Audit which measures the quality of Parkinson’s services against international best practice. This includes Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) data from people who use Parkinson’s services.

The 2022 Audit showed Scotland outperforming the UK in terms of future care planning, and access to essential professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with both the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) and Police Scotland to discuss a range of matters arising in the delivery of justice services.

Specialist or problem solving courts, the establishment of which is ultimately a decision for the judiciary and SCTS, can be an effective way of supporting those with particular needs and positive work is underway in this area.

For example, the Glasgow Alcohol Court opened in 2018 and aims to reduce rates of offending by supporting people who offend with their underlying alcohol issues. Once accepted into the Alcohol Court, participants receive intensive support from their justice social worker and a substance use worker. In 2022, 240 people were accepted into the Alcohol Court.

There are other good practice examples of problem solving courts, including the Pan-Lanarkshire Alcohol and Drugs Problem Solving Court, which secured funding via the CORRA foundation and launched in December 2023.

In terms of court disposals, community payback orders offer a range of potential requirements including a specific alcohol treatment requirement.

Police Scotland, working in partnership with stakeholders, is establishing a working group that will promote best practice and work to drive an increase in referrals from police custody into support for mental health and wellbeing, alcohol and drugs and other relevant services. The new pathway for arrest referrals has now been established, which involved a full review of practices, mapping of services and establishing any gaps in service provision across Scotland. Further work is planned to drive further improvements in the arrest referral service.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with stakeholders including Social Work Scotland, COSLA, the Community Justice Voluntary Sector Forum and Community Justice Scotland, to discuss a range of matters arising in the delivery of justice services. With regard to specific interventions, however, community justice is primarily based on a local model, with local areas providing or commissioning services according to local need, and working in collaboration with relevant health services to ensure that any necessary support and treatment is provided.

Justice organisations are also represented on Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) which are funded to work with a range of partners at a strategic, operational and service level. ADPs commission a range of activity which can provide support for those in the justice system, such as referrals to treatment services, harm reduction interventions, alcohol interventions and alcohol use treatment needs screening.

The Scottish Government is currently working on a National Treatment Specification for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Scotland. This document will be informed by numerous sources including the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment, the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems’ (SHAAP) paper on alcohol use disorder in the justice system.

We are also investing an additional £11 million in 2025-26 to support a range of community justice services, including diversion from prosecution, alternatives to remand and community sentencing. This brings our total budget for community justice to £159m, recognising the key role that such services play in our justice system, including in supporting people with alcohol problems or other underlying needs.

The pathways in place across the country for people with problem alcohol use are developed and implemented by local services based on local needs assessments. The services necessary are commissioned on the advice of local Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships. The Scottish Government provides funding for those services and asks ADPs to report on progress against their own local strategies.

The Scottish Government has committed to providing guidance to ADPs through the development of a national Service Specification and follow-up national Standards for Alcohol and Drug treatment. This will be informed by the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) paper on alcohol use disorder in the justice system.

The health and wellbeing of women at work is a key element of Scottish Government’s approach to Fair Work, including supporting women experiencing menopause and those who feel forced from the workforce due to their symptoms.

In the absence of powers on employment legislation the Scottish Government seeks to drive Fair Work by attaching criteria to grants, contracts and other public funding through our Fair Work First principles. Our Fair Work First Guidance provides good practice examples for supporting women and allowing them to maintain their careers, including menopause support, by directing employers to resources produced by NHS Inform and Close the Gap. Access to flexible working is also of vital benefit to workers who may need to balance work with managing health conditions. Since 2020, the Scottish Government has provided more than £1.1 million to help employers improve access to flexible working. Asking employers to offer flexible working from day one of employment has been a principle of Fair Work First since October 2021. Fair Work First criteria has been applied to over £2.6 billion worth of public sector grants between July 2023 and March 2024.

Through the Women’s Health Plan, in October 2023 NHS Scotland launched their National Menopause and Menstrual Health Workplace Policy for their workforce of around 180,000 as an example of best practice. Supporting resources, including line managers and workplace adjustment guides, are intended for use more widely across a variety of employment sectors and are available on the National Wellbeing Hub which is accessible to the public. Since the publication of the Policy, promotional activities have taken place to share the Policy across sectors.

The recently concluded Workplace Equality Fund supported four menopause-related projects, from which lessons learned and resources created will be shared widely with employers across Scotland alongside wider guidance, advice and support on all aspects of Fair Work as part of a fair work resource hub currently being developed with input from employers.

We have commissioned NHS National Services Scotland to establish a long COVID Strategic Network. This has a multi-disciplinary working group focussed on children and young people, which has worked to develop a clinical pathway to support the appropriate assessment, referral and management of children and young people with long COVID symptoms.

This pathway was completed in June 2024 and disseminated to territorial NHS Boards. Following the dissemination of the pathway, the working group has conducted a survey of NHS boards to identify the routes through which they are providing support to children and young people with long COVID. A report summarising the responses from NHS boards is being developed, after which appropriate next steps will be identified by the group.

The Scottish Government has no plans to conduct an equality and human rights impact assessment on paediatric long COVID services.

NHS Boards exercise responsibilities in relation to planning, commissioning and delivering healthcare services, and take overall responsibility for the health and wellbeing of the populations they serve. NHS Boards are discrete legal entities and legally accountable and responsible for how they carry out their functions, services, duties and responsibilities.