Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-29778

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-28615 by Christina McKelvie on 9 August 2024, how any insights gained from the core minimum dataset, which is expected to be published in December, will be utilised to improve residential rehabilitation services.

The Scottish Government will carefully consider the key insights from the experimental core minimum dataset when the first batch of information is published by Public Health Scotland in December 2024.

It should be noted that this first publication is likely to be limited to reflect only the number of placements reported in the monitoring period. Similarly, the dataset will not provide specific recommendations on what is required to improve rehabilitation services, but will help us understand possible issues for exploration.

A greater level of insight and data will be available for publication, including average treatment length and outcomes, as the dataset continues to develop and become more mature.

Question reference: S6W-29788

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether the definition of "rehabilitation" has been altered to include any form of "residential placement", in light of reported concerns that this potentially dilutes the understanding of what constitutes true rehabilitation.

No - we have set out a clear definition of what counts as residential rehabilitation and used it consistently since its publication in 2021.

The Scottish Government uses the Residential Rehabilitation Development Working Group definition of residential rehab as "facilities offering programmes which aim to support individuals to attain an alcohol or drug-free lifestyle and to be re-integrated into society, provide intensive psychosocial support and a structured programme of daily activities, and which residents are required to attend over a fixed period of time."

Question reference: S6W-29785

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the reported drop in the number of individuals accessing alcohol treatment services can be attributed to comprehensive and effective treatment not being readily available.

Question reference: S6W-29746

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) improvement and (b) repair works have been (i) postponed or (ii) rescheduled by Traffic Scotland in the Highlands and Islands region between August 2023 and August 2024, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-29764

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships have conducted local alcohol death reviews since 2020.

Question reference: S6W-29762

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the value of local alcohol deaths reviews to enable improvements to be made in the provision and practice of local services that can reduce the risk of future deaths.

Alcohol death reviews are a valuable practice for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to undertake in order to gain a deeper and more detailed understanding of the circumstances surrounding alcohol-specific deaths. To assess to what extent the people who have died were in touch with local services, what interventions had taken place, whether there is an identifiable profile of the people who are suffering an alcohol-specific death and whether there are lessons that can be learned, changes or improvements that can be made to services to prevent future deaths in the local area.

Question reference: S6W-29766

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether its current actions in relation to alcohol are sufficient to address the scale of alcohol harm in Scotland, particularly in light of the latest alcohol-specific death statistics.

Every life lost to alcohol is a tragedy and the recent alcohol specific deaths statistics published by the National Records of Scotland is a stark reminder of the challenge we continue to face in tackling alcohol harm across Scotland.

The Scottish Government continues to prevent alcohol harm including continuing and increasing the minimum unit price of alcohol. Minimum unit pricing has been estimated to have saved hundreds of lives since it was first implemented in 2018 and the steps taken by this Government are expected to continue and increase the positive health effects of the policy. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has also set out the next steps for progressing work on alcohol marketing, which also seeks to develop further preventative approaches to reducing alcohol harm.

To support people already drinking at hazardous and harmful levels the Scottish Government provided record investment to ADPs in the 2024-2025 financial year. In addition to this we are currently developing a national treatment specification for alcohol treatment in Scotland which will look to build on the work of the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment. The Scottish Government also supports innovation to develop best practice on tackling alcohol harm including projects such as the Managed Alcohol Programme and the Primary Care Alcohol Nurse Outreach Service which has recently been embedded into mainstream services in Glasgow City ADP.

Question reference: S6W-29747

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is able to provide a breakdown of the number of patients that faced delayed discharge in NHS Western Isles between January 2024 and August 2024 by age group.

A delayed discharge occurs when a hospital patient (aged 18 or over) who is clinically ready for discharge from inpatient hospital care continues to occupy a hospital bed beyond the date they are ready for discharge. Public Health Scotland hold data relating to people aged 18 and over affected by delayed discharge.

Data for August 2024 is not yet available as it is due to be published on 1 October 2024. Therefore Table 1 presents the total number of people aged 18 or over who faced a period of delay, for any reason, in NHS Western Isles between 1 January and 31 July 2024.

Table 1: Number of people1 who faced a period of delay in NHS Western Isles hospitals in the period 1 January 2024 to 31 July 2024, by age group.

Age Group2	Number of individual people who had a delayed discharge episode	No longer in delay at 31 July 20243	Still in delay at 31 July 20244
18+	93	80	13
18-74	14	13	1
75+	79	67	12

1.Some individuals may have had more than one delay episode in this period, however they have only been counted once. Figures include people who experienced a delay at any point in the time period including people whose delay may have started prior to January 2024.

2.The age groups reflect the age groups presented in the monthly delayed discharges publication.

3.Includes people who were: discharged from hospital; have died; or were removed from the delayed discharge list as they were no longer fit for discharge.

4.Delay could have started at any time.

Information on delayed discharges is published monthly on the Public Health Scotland Website. The publication provides a monthly update on the:

number of people experiencing a delay in discharge from hospital at the monthly census point – the last Thursday of the month.
number of hospital bed days associated with delayed discharges in the calendar month.
number of discharges from hospital that followed a period of delay in the calendar month.

In the publication people could be counted in multiple months if they are delayed in more than one month.

Source: Public Health Scotland

Ref: IR2024-0061

Question reference: S6W-29763

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether a letter was issued to local Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships in 2020, asking them to undertake local reviews of alcohol deaths every three years, and, if so, what the content was of that letter.

Question reference: S6W-29767

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when the National Mission on Drugs was extended to include alcohol.

The National Mission was established to improve and save lives of people impacted by drugs. However, given that many of the improvements to services, such as residential rehabilitation, included as part of the Mission are integrated for both alcohol and drugs, the work of the Mission has always been helping save and improve the lives of people impacted by alcohol as well. There is also a significant cohort of people whose lives have been impacted by both alcohol and drugs.