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The Scottish Government expects NHS Boards to ensure that staff are appropriately trained and developed in line with the Staff Governance Standard and relevant professional requirements.

To support this, we wrote to NHS Boards and General Practitioners in July 2022 to raise awareness of the NICE guideline on ME/CFS and highlight key changes in practice. The Scottish Government has also funded Action for ME and partners to develop and disseminate an online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module on ME/CFS for health and social care professionals and has supported activity to promote awareness and uptake of the resource.

Through our ongoing engagement with NHS Boards on specialist support services for long COVID, ME/CFS and related conditions, we continue to emphasise the importance of services being informed by relevant clinical guidance, including the NICE guideline on ME/CFS.

Responsibility for workforce training and professional development rests with NHS Boards as employers. While the Scottish Government continues to promote awareness of relevant clinical guidance and educational resources it does not mandate specific continuing professional training requirements for individual conditions.

Any new funding commitments or changes to existing funding will be discussed and agreed through COSLA formal financial governance process which requires agreed recommendations from the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group and political agreement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA political Leaders.

The establishment of Integrated Navigation Centres and Co-ordination Hubs forms part of our wider programme of reform, as set out in our Health and Care Improving Flow Plan 2026-2031, to improve patient flow and access to care across the health and social care system.

Detailed planning is underway with system partners. Decisions on the number of centres and hubs, workforce requirements and associated costs will be considered within that planning. As this work progresses, we will continue to assess local and national needs to ensure these arrangements deliver the greatest benefit for patients and services.

I am pleased to report that as of September 2026, Public Service Delivery Scotland and Local Government Digital Office have accepted a formal commissioned to develop a programme around the Digital Health and Care Record. £3.6m will be invested this year to begin the necessary initial technology testing and business case work needed to set out the path to delivery and estimated delivery cost.

We continue to make significant financial investment in health and social care services. The 2026-27 Budget invests £22.5 billion in health and social care, including £17.6 billion in NHS Boards, £2.3 billion for social care and £2.4 billion in primary care. The Health and Social Care Improving Flow Plan is about ensuring that investment delivers maximum benefit by improving how services work together and shifting care towards prevention, community services and home-based care where appropriate. Delivery will build on that existing investment, while detailed implementation planning will continue alongside normal financial planning processes.

Improving A&E performance is a key priority of this Plan. We recognise that A&E performance is influenced by pressures across the whole pathway, including delayed discharge, hospital occupancy, ambulance handovers and community capacity. For that reason, the Plan focuses on improving flow across the entire health and care system, to support sustainable improvement in A&E performance.

In line with the commitment to tackle corridor care, we will work with Health Boards and Public Health Scotland to ensure we are taking the necessary steps to deliver improvements. This will include considering collecting data on patients who are being cared for in non-standard areas, such as hospital corridors. This consideration will be based on clinical advice.

Delayed discharge remains a key priority and the plan sets out the action we are taking to support this including strengthening the adoption of Discharge Without Delay, Home First and Discharge to Assess approaches.

To support our aim of a more connected system, with simpler routes to care, we are introducing digital appointment functionality through MyCare.scot. The first phase, planned for 2027-28, will allow patients to view secondary care appointment information and related communications online. Over time, the service will expand to include appointment management, self-management, two-way communication to support services such as e-triage, and remote monitoring. The Digital Health and Care Record will also support secure access to a more complete health and care record across organisations, while MyCare.scot will provide the public-facing route for people to access their information and services.

The Scottish Government understands the importance of age-specific cancer care for children and young people, and our ambitions are clearly laid out in the Collaborative and Compassionate Cancer Care: cancer strategy for children and young people 2021–2026.

The Scottish Government is actively considering how we best continue to deliver on our ambitions to improve care for children and young people with cancer. This includes engaging with those involved in delivering on the current strategy to understand the opportunities to do so when considering any future strategy approach.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S7W-02383 and S7W-02384 on 1 September 2026. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government Bonds Programme was developed following a recommendation from the independent Investor Panel that Scotland should consider issuing debt in capital markets to diversify funding sources, strengthen investor engagement, raise Scotland's profile with investors and establish a market track record.

The Critical Success Factors in the Outline Business Case were developed to assess options against these aims, as well as requirements relating to affordability, deliverability and achievability.

The Scottish Government has no plans to revisit the Outline Business Case or revise the Critical Success Factors. A wholesale issuance aimed at institutional investors remains the most cost-effective approach for an inaugural transaction and best supports the programme's objectives.

Future issuances may consider alternative structures where these offer value for money and support the programme's strategic objectives.

The Scottish Government notes the conclusions of the report, including its estimates regarding capital flows, but does not agree that they provide a robust assessment of the Scottish Government Bonds Programme or its economic impacts.

The Scottish Government Bonds Programme was developed following a recommendation from the independent Investor Panel that Scotland should consider issuing debt in capital markets.

The Outline Business Case concluded that a multi-year bond programme could represent value for money and deliver a number of strategic and economic benefits, including strengthening investor engagement, raising Scotland’s profile with investors, supporting investment in Scotland and establishing a market track record.

The Scottish Government Bonds Programme was developed following a recommendation from the independent Investor Panel that Scotland should consider issuing debt in capital markets to strengthen investor engagement, raise Scotland's profile with investors and establish a market track record.

The Critical Success Factors were designed to assess the extent to which options would support the programme's strategic objectives and satisfy requirements relating to value for money, affordability, achievability and deliverability. The Outline Business Case also considered wider economic benefits associated with increased investor engagement and investment in Scotland.