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-18802

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, whether it has published a comprehensive action plan clarifying the range of learning and development options for its integrated workforce.

Question reference: S6W-18798

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, whether it has established a new national information governance programme to address the recommendations of the Information Governance Review executive summary.

Question reference: S6W-18817

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, what it has done to develop an approach to improving the quality and consistency of protected characteristic demographic data.

The recently released Data Strategy for Health and Social Care sets out our intent to improve the capture, storage and use of protected characteristics data. The Scottish Government is currently exploring the range of methods to achieve the commitment made in both the Delivery Plan and Data Strategy, including the significant opportunities presented by the new CHI system that is due to be operational in autumn of this year.

Question reference: S6W-18783

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, what it has done to deliver improvements to telecare services, such as greater use of proactive wellbeing calls by alarm receiving centres, to telecare users.

Our primary focus on improving telecare services is in supporting the migration of existing analogue devices to new, more sophisticated, digital devices to ensure telecare services remain fit for purpose following the UK-wide switch-over of telephone lines to a digital infrastructure.

Local Government Digital Office (LGDO) has been commissioned by Scottish Government to lead on this work and are currently taking forward a tender to develop a national digital telecare Alarm Receiving Centre solution that will support a more joined up service across HSCPs (Health and Social Care Partnership) and housing providers offering telecare in Scotland.

In addition, we continue to explore the use of Proactive Telecare in Scotland to deliver a more tailored and preventative service that aims to anticipate and prevent crises and support wellbeing and resilience. This approach has been trialled on a small scale across two phases for which an evaluation is now available . Plans are currently underway to initiate a third phase of Proactive Telecare during 2023-24, reaching more citizens, to fully evaluate the potential and scope for Proactive Telecare as a nationally recommended approach.

Question reference: S6W-18811

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, whether it has created opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaboration with international stakeholders to support the sustainable development and delivery of digital health and social care for Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-18815

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, what it has done to continue with planning for the digital and data requirements of the National Care Service, including consideration of what is required to deliver a nationally consistent integrated record.

We are following the Scottish Approach to Service Design. All our work will be person-centred and we will be working closely with those who will use the record – including those in receipt of care and frontline staff – to understand what is important for the integrated social care and health record.

We have also largely concluded technical research to understand what digital approaches, services and products have enabled similar services outside of Scotland and what lessons can be learned from both successful and unsuccessful digital projects and programmes We have also reviewed the technology, service and digital architectural landscape across the public, private and third sector organisations who are involved in the delivery of social care services in Scotland to understand how best to implement an integrated record.

Question reference: S6W-18803

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, whether it is providing a Leading Digital Transformation in Health and Care MSc for 60 people a year.

Applications closed on the 15 January with 72 applications in total received. Following a rigorous panel selection 48 applicants were successful in obtaining a place on the programme. The MSc programme launched in March and is constructed to provide the 48 participants with the opportunity to achieve Certificate, Diploma, or Masters level accreditation as they progress. Programme participants represent 31 organisations across the health and care sector. The first module, 'Fundamentals of Leading Digital Transformation' commenced in April.

Question reference: S6W-18790

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, what it has done to expand the National Clinical Data Store.

The information held in the National Clinical Data Store (NSCDS) currently contains data on vaccinations and anticipatory care plans (ReSPECT) and forms part of the patient’s clinical record. NCDS is interoperable with other core systems and supports our ambitions of ensuring that information is available to staff when and where they need it.

A "developer portal" has been deployed and released as a pilot to NHS Scotland Boards that allows IT teams to explore reading and writing data in the FHIR standard from and to the NCDS.

As part of its delivery plan in the 2023-24 financial year, the NCDS team, at NES Digital, will focus on developing storage and access capability for digital dermatology, laboratory results, genomics and medical devices data.These improvements will further support NHS Scotland to clinically audit, improve and provide safe treatment.

Question reference: S6W-18818

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, what it has done to develop a national approach to the ethical, transparent consideration of adoption and implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based tools, products and services.

The recently released Data Strategy for Health and Social Care details a set of ethical principles for the use of data across our health and care sector. These principles are applicable to the use of AI as well as the broader use of data.

Furthermore, the Data Strategy sets out our intent to work towards the safe adoption of AI tools, working to international best practice. We have also committed to developing a policy framework for adoption of AI across health and by Spring 2024.

Question reference: S6W-18788

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23, whether it has delivered a Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE).