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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 1445 contributions
|
Meeting of the Parliament
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Tess White
I did not know that that was in the committee report. Thank you.
Meeting of the Parliament
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Tess White
The relevance of Westminster. The United Kingdom Government has no bearing on the committee report. Thank you.
Meeting of the Parliament
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Tess White
I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. We all agree on the importance of the work that the committee has done.
The undeniable reality is that our NHS is severely overstretched, and that is especially the case in primary care. Despite the best efforts of GPs and front-line staff in surgeries across Scotland, primary care is struggling to keep pace with demand and increasingly complex patient needs. Stephanie Callaghan quite rightly talked about the value of the personal stories that the committee heard. Evelyn Tweed said that there is no doubt that primary care is under pressure. That is a massive understatement. The deputy chair of the BMA’s Scottish GP committee put it bluntly, as she rightly should. She said:
“This is a particularly terrible time for general practice.”
There is a wider issue, which is that the whole system is overwhelmed, from GP practices to A and E. We are seeing record waiting times month after month, and things are getting worse, not better. The NHS is on its knees.
Earlier, the committee’s convener highlighted workforce and capacity issues, poor signposting, digital exclusion, limited public awareness of the changes and the fact that people feel that they have been fobbed off. There simply is not the necessary capacity in place, yet public messaging from Humza Yousaf and health boards such as NHS Grampian in my region is directing patients away from emergency departments to non-critical care. As the Royal College of General Practitioners says, that approach means that
“pressure is not relieved, only reallocated.”
The question is how we navigate through this crisis so that patients receive the timely, targeted and high-quality care that they need and so that primary healthcare professionals do not experience burnout. It is here that the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s work on alternative pathways to primary care makes an important contribution.
As we have heard during today’s debate, the Scottish Conservatives believe that alternative pathways to primary care provide a vital way to alleviate the burden on overstretched GPs and other healthcare professionals. My colleague Craig Hoy warned again of a rise in unexplained pharmacy closures due to the Scottish pharmacy contract—I stress that pharmacies are a key alternative pathway to primary care. In the first five months of this year alone, staff shortages caused pharmacies to close almost 1,800 times.
Meeting of the Parliament
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Tess White
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Meeting of the Parliament
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Tess White
I am just questioning the relevance.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Tess White
What you said on co-design—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Tess White
One of the questions that remains unanswered comes from Reform Scotland, which feels that there has been inadequate
“explanation about why simply removing local government from social care will lead to an improvement in delivery.”
It also pointed out that
“The loss of local understanding and accountability, especially in more rural areas, were highlighted as risks of the proposals during the consultation”.
Will you comment on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Tess White
I have one question for Alison White. I noticed that you said that co-design should come before the legislation, not after it. My question relates to what you said about your concern that further integration could make adult social care a delayed-discharges service. Could you go into more detail as to how that might happen?
10:00Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Tess White
Dr Williams, the NCS risks taking power away from local decision makers. What impact do you expect that to have?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Tess White
The convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, Kenneth Gibson, said that, with the bill, it seems that the Government is
“using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 25 October 2022; c 24.]
Will you comment on that, please?
