The Scottish Government recognises the importance of housing being adaptable in order to meet people’s needs over time. Housing Beyond 2021 will be a vision for how our homes and communities should look and feel in 2040 and the options and choices to get there, as set out in our Programme for Government. The flexibility and adaptability of the housing stock will be considered as part of this work.

The Scottish Government has not made an assessment of the impact of housing association adaptations on NHS waiting times for occupational therapy.

Since the integration of health and social care, Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) are now responsible for the planning and delivery of adaptations using budgets created by delegation and for reviewing and developing services to improve outcomes for people who require adaptations.

We have also provided £10 million directly to Registered Social Landlords this year, to assist them in providing adaptations for their tenants.

Since the integration of health and social care, Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) are responsible for the delivery of adaptations and for reviewing, planning and developing services to improve outcomes for people who require adaptation services.

We have also provided £10 million directly to Registered Social Landlords in 2018-19, to assist them in providing adaptations for their tenants.

In December 2015, the Scottish Government committed to allocating £3.5m over four years to support the implementation of the Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care (SFA). This funding is to support improvements in palliative and end of life care, and is in addition to expenditure by Integration Authorities on these services, which is described in their strategic commissioning plans and financial reports. It is expected that the £3.5m for implementing the SFA will be fully spent by the end of this financial year.

The Scottish Government is working closely with a wide range of stakeholders to explore options for further improving palliative and end of life care services.

Each NHS board has access to a passive immunisation medical product (Palivizumab) that can reduce the worst complications of RSV in those young children at the greatest risk of complications of RSV once they have become infected with this virus. All eligible children will be under the care of hospital based paediatricians, and therefore the use of palivizumab is determined by them on a clinical basis, in the RSV season.

The GP Recruitment and Retention fund has resulted in 57 GPs being recruited across Scotland. The funding offered by the Scottish Government enabled projects to be developed and funding to be mainstreamed.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Tayside and the Deep End Pioneer Scheme are all in the process of recruiting new GPs onto their fellowships programmes which proved to be highly successful under the GP Recruitment and Retention fund that health boards are now supporting them. We continue to fund the development of the Scottish Rural Medicine Collaborative that has brought together 10 Health Boards across rural Scotland and are investing a further £7.5 million this year to recruit and retain GPs.

Listed below are the numbers of GPs broken down by board that officials have been sourcing as data was not held centrally.

The Scottish Government will launch a consultation on restricting domestic advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes in early 2019. This timetable will allow for the Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 to come into force. These Regulations which are currently being considered in the UK Parliament cover electronic cigarette advertising and are likely to come into force in early 2019. If the UK and the EU reach a withdrawal agreement which means these EU Exit Regulations are no longer required then our consultation may begin sooner.

Health Boards must ensure that their neonatal units are appropriately and safely staffed. All NHS boards with a neonatal unit have run the neonatal nursing workload tool in 2016 and 2017, with the exception of NHS Highland. Scottish Government officials have contacted the Executive Nurse Director of NHS Highland about their use of the neonatal workforce planning tool. We will work with NHS Highland to ensure they run the neonatal workforce planning tool and provide whatever support they require.

NHS boards run the workload tool twice daily and the output provides valuable information not only for planning staffing numbers, but to identify staffing requirements on a daily basis which takes account of the dynamic nature of services. We have committed to enshrine safe staffing in law, placing the existing nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools on a statutory footing.

Bliss played a vital part in our national maternity and neonatal review, 'The Best Start: A Five Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland'. Bliss are represented on the ‘Best Start’ Implementation Programme Board. The Programme Board is examining neonatal workforce and education as part of their programme of work to take forward the package of recommendations. Work is well underway to implement the recommendations contained within The Best Start review.

A full written update on progress will be available at the end of the year and will be placed in SPICe.

We do not have a single measure that captures performance against this aim, as the provision of palliative care depends on the interaction of a range of services - formal palliative care, care at home and care home services, and access to hospice and hospice-at-home services - that vary considerably in definition between local systems. Good care at end of life requires collaborative, multi-disciplinary support, which is why Integration Authorities have been given statutory responsibility for meeting this need. Integration Authorities regularly report on their progress using the 23 indicators ( https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Policy/Adult-Health-SocialCare-Integration/Outcomes/Indicators/Indicators ) that support the statutory outcomes set out in the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014.

The indicator currently used nationally to gauge progress on improving palliative and end of life care provision is the percentage of last six months of life spent in the community. Integration Authorities met their planned trajectory for this indicator of 88% for 2017-18, which is an increase from 86.7% since the publication of the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan in 2015-16. However, we recognise that this indicator is only a measure of place of care, rather than quality or experience of care, and is not sufficient on its own. We are working with partners in local systems and health and social care professionals to develop better measures for this aim.