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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around dying and bereavement support regardless of geographical location.

As part of the development of the Scottish Government’s draft strategy, ‘Palliative Care Matters for All’, the Strategy Steering Group and a number of expert working groups carried out surveys to map palliative care delivery across Scotland, including in rural and island communities. This report can be accessed at .

This work has been helpful in providing a clearer picture of the delivery and accessibility of palliative care services and support across Scotland and has helped to inform the actions set out in the draft strategy. The final palliative care strategy is due to published later this year.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that women across Scotland have timely access to reproductive health services. Work continues on the actions set out in the Women’s Health Plan 2021 and the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus (SHBBV) Action Plan 2023-26 to ensure that anyone accessing contraception, or deciding to terminate their pregnancy, is provided with fully accessible and person-centred pathways, with information provided to allow for informed decisions to be made about their own sexual and reproductive health.

As part of the SHBBV Action Plan, the Scottish Government has committed to visiting all 14 Health Boards. During these visits the Scottish Government will be recognising the challenges that Boards are facing and the good practice being delivered. This time will also be used to explore areas for collaboration between Boards, both nationally and regionally, especially within rural areas. Officials’ visit to NHS Grampian is scheduled for May 2025.

The evaluation of early medical abortion at home (EMAH) in Scotland was published in March 2023, demonstrating high levels of effectiveness of EMAH, but noting some variations in service delivery across the country. The Scottish Government has taken various actions forward with the Scottish Abortion Care Providers network following this to improve and increase consistency of EMAH services for women across Scotland, and particularly in rural areas, including by providing improved patient information.

An updated medical abortion approval was signed in December 2024, allowing women to take abortion medication in residential or temporary accommodation if clinically appropriate, particularly benefitting patients who may live significant distances from hospitals or clinics.

The Scottish Government is working with Health Boards and Public Health Scotland to monitor access to services, including analysis of annual statistics. As part of the commitment to ensure services are accessible to all, officials regularly discuss barriers to these reproductive health services with Health Boards, including NHS Grampian, to inform possible improvements to services for patients in rural locations.

The Scottish Government recognise that people in rural areas can experience particular challenges in relation to their mental health and wellbeing.

Decisions around the provision of mental health services is a local responsibility, planned by Integrated Joint Boards and delivered through a mixture of NHS, local authority and third sector organisations. Mental Health services will vary depending the local population needs and will be guided by clinical decision making.

While we expect service decisions to be taken locally, we have invested £66 million in our Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults since 2021. The Fund has a strong focus on prevention and early intervention and prioritises a range of ‘at risk’ groups including those people disadvantaged by geographical location (particularly remote and rural areas) with over 900 awards being made to community projects supporting people disadvantaged by geographical location (including rural areas) since its inception.

Initial diagnosis of visual impairments largely takes place in community optometry practices following patient presentation to the service. We are not aware of access concerns to the service at this time.

There is currently no community provision for audiology in Scotland. Diagnosis is performed within secondary care settings and typically on referral from wider health networks and services. Consideration of audiology capacity – within existing NHS hospital services – is being taken forward in response to the findings of the Independent Review of Audiology. In addressing the Review’s recommendations, audiology has been designated a clinical priority area, with improvement work being progressed through the National Planning and Delivery Board arrangements, led by the Chief Operating Officer – NHS Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and enabling people to be more physically active. Mean sedentary time at work is monitored through data gathered from the annual Scottish Health Survey. The Scottish Government work closely with Public Health Scotland, The Physical Activity for Health Research Centre (PAHRC), and other experts to understand the latest research on the negative health impacts of sedentary behaviour.

We are continuing to work across the Scottish Government and with delivery partners, including Public Health Scotland and See Me, to ensure that employers across all sectors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to promote and support the conditions that enable good mental health at work.

Together, we are delivering a joint package of support for employers across Scotland to support mentally healthy workplaces, which includes:

• The ‘’ employer platform, which was launched in August 2022 and signposts employers to a wide range of free mental health and wellbeing resources and information.
• The ‘’, which was established in March 2023 to complement the employer platform and to bring together employers of all sizes and across all sectors to share learning and experiences of supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
• Public Health Scotland’s Mentally Flourishing Workplaces Framework. Developed in collaboration with a range of employers, this aims to help employers identify what they can do to improve mental health support for their employees, and work together to be a mentally flourishing organisation.
• The See Me in Work Programme, led by See Me, Scotland’s anti-mental health stigma campaign. which provides online support for employers to enable them to create stigma-free and mentally healthy working environments.

Additionally, since 2019 Scottish Government’s Mental Health Directorate has provided funding to the Lifelines Scotland wellbeing programme, to support blue light responders – Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Ambulance Service – who have had difficult experiences in the course of their work which have affected their mental health and wellbeing.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport operates on a commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government and Ministers do not intervene in operational matters. Additionally, statistics regarding arrests in any location at a matter for Police Scotland.

The Scottish Wildfire Forum, which is chaired by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, includes Local Authorities, Regional Resilience Partnerships and other Agencies as members to assess wildfire risks and consider what mitigating actions might be taken.

The aim of the forum is to develop and communicate strategic wildfire protection and prevention initiatives to stakeholders and the wider community. Alongside the Forum, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service continue to work closely with land managers and local communities prevent wildfires occurring. Scottish Forestry also actively seeks to promote awareness of wildfire management practice through working with partners on the Forum.

Scottish Forestry also led the 2023 review of the UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) (2023) - the Government’s reference standard for sustainable forest management. The UKFS Practice Guide focusses on reducing the likelihood of wildfires occurring, reducing the severity of damage and impacts on people and the environment if they do occur, and assisting with fire suppression activities.

The supports forest owners, planners, and managers in Scotland to implement Practice Guide 22 in a Scottish context, to understand the wildfire risk to the forests they manage, and how to reduce this risk through good practice in forest design and planning.

Work is also ongoing within the National Parks to address the risk and impact of wildfires. Following a consultation the Cairngorms Park Authority board agreed on in June 2024 to develop a seasonal fire management byelaw, which would last from 1 April to 30 September each year to reduce the risk of ignition of wildfires.

Both the CNPA and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) also engage with key stakeholders through Visit Scotland’s Visitor Management Strategy Group Visitor Management: Scotland's Plan & Objectives | VisitScotland.org to develop messaging around visitor related fires.

The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 introduced new legislation including a new licensing scheme which will require that all practitioners of muirburn need to have completed appropriate training. Poorly managed muirburn can increase the risk of uncontrolled wildfire. However, undertaken properly, muirburn can be an important tool in managing fuel loads and so reducing the risk and intensity of wildfires. NatureScot, who are implementing these new measures, are currently consulting with relevant stakeholders, including land management organisations.

With regards to funding, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) wildfire strategy was launched in 2023 and is supported by a planned spend of around £1.6 million over the course of three years. The strategy considers the increased risk of wildfire and changing climate in Scotland; the latest developments in wildfire management, training, and operational procedures; and the advances in technology that have been made in PPE and equipment. The Scottish Government does not hold details of relevant spending by the CNPA, LLTNPA, or local authorities.

We will continue to expand NHS Pharmacy First Scotland so that a wider range of health conditions are covered. This will further transfer the care of common clinical conditions to community pharmacy, removing the need for visits to GPs, Out of Hours services or Emergency Departments for everyday self-limiting conditions. In doing so, we will consult NHS24 and health boards to identify the priority conditions the service could cover in all community pharmacies in Scotland.

Through the Pharmacy First Plus element of the service, pharmacists who are qualified independent prescribers (IPs) can already go a step further than standard Pharmacy First, going beyond the approved list of products and the Patient Group Directions (PGDs) in place, to prescribe a wider range of products in response to patients' symptoms and conditions.