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The information in relation to delayed chemotherapy treatments is not collected or held centrally. However on 26 September 2018, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed since January 2018 16 patients at the Royal Hospital for Children have had their chemotherapy treatment delayed.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) holds annual negotiations with Scottish Care, the representative body of the independent care home sector, to set appropriate and consistent fee levels across Scotland for publicly funded clients as part of the National Care Home Contract.

A programme of work around the reform of the NCHC undertaken by COSLA and Scottish Care has led to a significant uplift in the NCHC rate in 2018-19 of 3.39%, using detailed benchmarking data to accurately reflect the cost of providing care to care home residents.

In recognition of the costs of residential care to self funders, we have increased the Free Personal and Nursing Care payments to self-funders with inflation in 2018 to £174/week for personal care and £79/week for nursing care. We are proud of the continued provision of free personal care to over 65s, and from 1st April 2019, those under the age of 65 will also benefit from this policy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-14195 on ‎20 February 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at

The Scottish Government reports to the Health and Sport
Committee on the financial position for all Integration
Authorities on a quarterly basis and the reports are publicly
available on the Scottish Parliament’s website:

The first two quarterly reports are available at:

The Scottish Government expects all Integration Authorities
to continue to develop their plans and work towards delivering
a balanced financial position and for the consolidated overspend
to reduce throughout the year as savings plans continue to be
developed, expenditure patterns become clearer and use of
reserves and additional financial support from partners is
confirmed. Additional funding from Health Boards to address
the overspend is factored in to the overall Health and Sport
Portfolio budget, which remains on track to deliver a balanced
outturn position.

On 3 September 2018 I received an email from Munwar Hussain in which he wrote that, on 27 June 2018, he received an email from a former junior doctor about bullying allegations. He stated that he then informed NHS Tayside’s Chair. NHS Tayside confirmed that the bulling allegations relate to Adult Mental Health Services which are presently under General Medical Council Enhanced Monitoring measures, of which Scottish Government officials were already aware.

Information on local breastfeeding services is not held centrally. It is for each NHS Board to plan services to meet the needs of its population including how best to utilise funding, facilities and staff to deliver these services.

Maternity and Community services across NHSScotland are now fully accredited by Unicef UK as Baby Friendly. All Midwives, Health Visitors, Family Nurses and support staff have been trained and are competent to provide high quality feeding and relationship building care for mothers and babies in all their infant feeding decisions.

In Scotland. the proportion of babies being fed any breast milk at their first visit has increased slightly over the last 10 years.

The National Census data, which is held centrally by ISD Scotland, are for staff employed directly by NHSScotland and includes the postcode of residence.

Staff working as and when required, such as bank and agency staff, are excluded from this data capture.

At 30 th June 2018 census, this information was complete for 97.8% of census records for nursing and midwifery staff in post. Of the 68,111 staff (headcount) involved, 69 (0.1%) staff had a non-Scottish postcode of residence.

This information is not centrally held.

Musculoskeletal (MSK) waiting time data is collected to allow measurement of the allied health professional MSK target. Physiotherapy is one of the 4 MSK professions (physiotherapy, podiatry, occupational therapy and orhtotics) included and measured for this target. MSK physiotherapy data has been collected from July 2015 but only as NHS Boards were able to provide data of sufficient quality for publication. The MSK data is considered to be developmental.

Further information on waiting times can be found on the ISD website -

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-18974 on 2 October 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at

The timing of financial reporting by individual Integration Authorities is aligned to the local release of information in to the public domain and associated with Board Meetings which generally take place every few months. For practical reasons there is currently no intention to increase the frequency of reporting from quarterly to monthly.

As the lead public body for our historic environment Historic Environment Scotland (HES) promotes the use of traditional building materials (which can be locally sourced) in relation to the care and maintenance of historic building stock, where appropriate, including in relation to historic properties in the care of public bodies. HES works closely with the Scottish Stone Group and wider stone industry sector to support the production and use of natural Scottish stone. HES has an ongoing Collaborative Partnership Agreement with the British Geological Survey in order to promote the use and production of natural stone in Scotland. As part of this Agreement, HES launched a publicly accessible Building Stone Database for Scotland in June 2018 to provide information on historic and current sources of traditionally used building stone across Scotland.

As part of the organisation's Action Framework for traditional building materials, due to be finalised later this year, HES is committing to producing guidance on the specification and procurement of traditional Scottish materials, including stone, for public bodies. HES has also produced a ‘Managing Change in the Historic Environment guidance note on External Walls’ which acknowledges local materials and traditions as an important element in defining the character of the building in question. The guidance note also promotes maintenance and appropriate repair as the best means of safeguarding the character of historic buildings.