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-13493

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has undertaken with the UK Department of Health and Social Care on developing partnerships with individual countries to support direct access to international labour markets.

The Scottish Government is represented on the Cross-Whitehall International Recruitment Steering Group chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care. The Steering Group provides national policy oversight on international supply activity, including the development of bilateral country to country agreements, ensuring consistent ethical practices in line with the International recruitment of health and social care personnel: Scottish Code of Practice - August 2022 (revised) - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Question reference: S6W-13490

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has developed a pilot model for primary care training hubs, in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland and NHS boards, in order to increase training capacity within primary care for GPs and all members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) workforce.

Primary care training hubs model has been developed and is in operation in GP practices in NHS Lothian and NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is working with Health Boards and GP practices to continue to increase training capacity in primary care settings for GPs and the MDT workforce. This work will inform the future use of training hubs and will accommodate the significant planned increases to medical undergraduate, foundation and GP training places, as well as other staff groups, announced by the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6W-13487

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has published a scoping review of Allied Health Professional (AHP) and Health Care Science (HCS) education; what gaps it has identified in training programmes, and what actions are required to meet future service needs.

The Scottish Government has recently conducted an Allied Health Profession Education & Workforce Policy Review. The recommendations of this review will be published shortly with an implementation plan published thereafter. The National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy has a commitment to undertake a scoping review of Healthcare Science education and to this end have recently conducted and published the first baseline review of the provision of Healthcare Science education.

Healthcare science - education and training provision: baseline review - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Question reference: S6W-13497

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the Scottish National Party manifesto commitment to recruit "1,500 more NHS staff to deliver our elective centre programme and increase specialist capacity", and how many additional staff have been hired through (a) domestic and (b) international recruitment.

Question reference: S6W-13462

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on the Centre for Workforce Supply.

Question reference: S6W-13949

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13532 by Kevin Stewart on 13 January 2023, when it expects this investigatory work to be completed.

Question reference: S6W-13538

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on its work with partners to establish a series of meaningful anti-racist objectives and performance measures for NHS board chairs.

The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) was commissioned to identify examples of anti-racist performance objectives with proposed performance measures that could be used by public bodies across Scotland.

To date, seven NHS Board Chairs have been set anti-racist objectives and performance measures in accordance with CRER's commission. Following feedback, these objectives and performance measures are being reviewed, to ensure they fully align with the scrutiny and assurance roles of Board Chairs.

Question reference: S6W-13447

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work has been undertaken to develop an effective workforce planning system for the health and social care sector that enables the prediction of future capacity and capability requirements, along with the identification of any gaps and pressure points.

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should make assessments of changing local service demand as part of analysing any local staffing gaps and pressure points, alongside setting out the actions that health boards and health and social care partnerships are taking to address identified issues.

Question reference: S6W-13468

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to accelerate training to increase the number of individuals trained to perform endoscopies in the NHS.

Our Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan , published on 30 November 2021, is backed by £70m investment and focuses on recovery of services, including Workforce Training and Development.

The National Endoscopy Training Programme (NETP) was established in September 2021 and has recruited staff to deliver endoscopy training to a wide range of learners from different professional backgrounds. This supports the upskilling of practitioners from across Health Boards through a range of courses, including immersion training.

We have also established training programmes for Nurse Endoscopists, Advanced Urology Practitioners and Healthcare Support worker.

Question reference: S6W-13437

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what emerging technologies it has identified to assist in bridging any gap between service capacity and demand in health and social care, alongside expanding workforce capabilities and expertise.

The Scottish Government is working in conjunction with NES to support the identification of emerging technologies to assist the gap between service demand and capacity within the health and care system, particularly around staff training to enhance skills. Examples include:

Online training provision within the Scotland Deanery.
Train-the-trainer for “simulation” training across a number of specialties and in specific procedures, such as in cystoscopy.
Virtual reality pilots for communications training in handling stressful situations in pre-hospital emergency care and mental health tribunals.
Mental health simulation training.
Virtual reality simulators, including six endoscopy simulators in 6 different health boards, alongside a national introductory course covering cancer diagnosis.
A national urology simulator and learning programme.