Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 1225 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Programme for Government 2023-24
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
There are health boards that do not have a long Covid pathway in place. When do you expect that to happen, and will you be putting pressure on health boards to come up with those pathways quickly?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We have been talking in exactly the same terms for a decade now. For example, John-Paul Loughrey might send me a letter from A and E on a Saturday, saying, “Can you please do these things for this patient, who doesn’t necessarily need to be here?”, but when the patient rocks up to me on the Monday, I will still not have that letter. We do not talk in that way.
Let me ask something more basic. When are GPs going to be able to do something as simple as repeat prescriptions without having to sign them in what might be a dangerous way? As a GP, I have to sign all repeat prescriptions, but I do not have the time to read them—no GP does. When can we have something really basic and simple that other countries have had for a long time, which is automatic repeat prescriptions?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I thank the panel for joining us today. I will ask you exactly the same question that I asked the first panel. We in primary care do not have the ability to call a code black and say that there is far too much pressure; a GP partner’s workload is unlimited. What are you doing to mitigate that and enable GPs to do more for patients than simply firefight and provide the basics?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I turn to my final question. Recent statistics show that 820,000 Scots are on a waiting list. That leads to pressures not only on GPs, because people will come back to their GP, but on A and E departments, because everyone cannot get the help that they need from their GP, so they start going to A and E and the cycle continues, which makes things far worse. What are you doing to ensure that patients are seen in a more timely manner when it comes to referrals?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I will ask the same question that I asked the first panel. I and other GPs find it very difficult when a patient, after going to an A and E department at the weekend, turns up and says, “Oh, someone in A and E asked me to come and see you”, because I will have no idea why if I have not received a document from the A and E department. Our systems do not communicate with one another efficiently. What are you doing now to ensure that we have consistent good messaging between us, given that we have been talking about this for an awfully long time?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Okay. There is ongoing work, but it has been going on for a decade plus, and we are not there yet. The interface between all our different areas is dangerous; that includes primary care and specialties.
I ask about this all the time. In other countries, repeat prescriptions can be done automatically for GPs. If we had that here, it would mean that I, as a GP, would not have to sit and sign a thick stack of prescriptions that I do not really have time to read, but just have to get on with. When will we have repeat prescriptions done in that manner?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you, convener.
Good morning, and thank you for coming in for our first meeting of the new term. My first question is directed at Nicky Connor and Pamela Milliken, if that is okay. As we saw last year, when it comes to winter planning the focus is on what is going on in accident and emergency departments and hospitals. However, in primary care, general practitioners cannot call a code black and say that they are overwhelmed and that it is impossible to do what they are doing safely. I was at work during the summer, when it was almost like that. When I was on call, I was doing things at a speed that was not overly safe, but things had to be done that way because that is how we got through the number of patients who were needing help. What plans do you have in place for primary care come the winter?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
When will that happen for repeat prescriptions?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Winter Planning 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Community link workers in Glasgow have written to me en masse to say that there are deep-end practices where community link workers are being cut. The meeting that I had suggested that some—a lot—of community link workers are considering their jobs, given the changes that might be coming down the road. If that is the case, how are we helping primary care if we are getting those deep cuts in our link workers?
