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-32901

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding the number of homeless people who are hospitalised each year and who are subsequently discharged, including their average length of stay, and what support is provided to them on discharge, including with (a) improving their welfare, (b) finding accommodation, (c) finding employment, (d) accessing education, (e) accessing drug, alcohol and/or other recovery services, (f) accessing NHS services and (g) improving their health outcomes.

The number of discharges from Scottish acute inpatient hospitals is presented in the following table. These figures do not include mental health facilities. These discharge figures have been produced using the Public Health Scotland SMR01 dataset which does not hold details of support provided on discharge.

Details of discharges from Scottish acute hospitals where the patient was recorded as having no fixed abode at hospital admission.

Financial Year	Count of discharges	Average Length of Stay (days)	Median Length of Stay (days)
2014-2015	237	4.2	1
2015-2016	296	3.5	1
2016-2017	312	4.5	1
2017-2018	347	4.7	1
2018-2019	206	5	1
2019-2020	230	6.1	1
2020-2021	183	2.4	1
2021-2022	103	3.4	1
2022-2023	62	3.6	1
2023-2024	91	12.8	1

*Note: The average length of stay for the period 2023/24 is affected by the presence of a small number of stays with long lengths of stays.

Question reference: S6O-04267

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last discussed plans to reduce corridor care and the use of temporary escalation spaces with NHS boards.

Question reference: S6W-32898

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 21 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce a strategy for dealing with poverty among older people.

The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ contains a dedicated strand focused on activity we are undertaking to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age.

In addition, we provide funding of £2.2 million, through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, to older people’s organisations and age equality projects. This funding is delivering a range of initiatives that tackles poverty among older people. A copy of the fund’s progress report can be found here Oct 23-Mar 24_E&HR Progress Report and provides details on initiatives we are delivering with this funding.

Our Pension Age Winter Heating Payment supports older people in receipt of relevant benefits to help with the costs of heating. Next winter, we will introduce a universal Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for all pensioner households in Scotland, meaning every pensioner household will receive a minimum of £100 with support towards their energy bills. This universal payment will provide much needed support not available anywhere else in the UK.

Question reference: S6W-32811

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its strategy is to tackle the reported long waiting times for gynaecological treatments.

Women’s Health is key priority for this government which is why Scotland was the first country in the UK to publish an ambitious Women’s Health Plan in August 2021. Timely access to gynaecology services will remain a priority as we continue to develop our Women’s Health Plan.

The Budget we set out on 4 December 2024 will throw the weight of the government behind performance improvements with almost £200 million to reduce waiting lists and help support reduction of delayed discharge. By March 2026, we expect no one to be waiting longer than 12 months for a new outpatient, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

We have already invested £30 million to reduce waiting lists that built up throughout the pandemic. This funding is being targeted at a series of national and local plans to reduce backlogs by maximising the use of local and national resources across Scotland. As part of this, we have allocated additional funding to Gynaecology services which we expect to deliver around 3,500 new outpatient appointments.

Question reference: S6W-32899

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 20 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what strategies are in place to increase public awareness of the issues that people with autism might face.

The Scottish Government has produced several resources to increase public awareness of the issues that autistic people might face.

We launched the Different Minds website in 2020 to provide clearer information and a better understanding of autism, as well debunking myths around autism. The site was co-produced with and features autistic people, and was accompanied by an television advertising campaign and resources in local libraries and schools.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government, COSLA and Inspiring Scotland have recently collaborated with autistic people through our leadership and engagement framework. This work resulted in the co-creation of a package of lived experience resources, which were launched in November 2024. The resources look to increase autism awareness and the understanding of how autistic people experience health settings and are now available on the website.

Question reference: S6W-32900

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 20 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce NHS waiting times for adults with autism.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Boards, community partners, and the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) to improve access to diagnosis, by supporting local health partners to develop, enhance and redesign existing local neurodevelopmental services.

We are working with NAIT to implement Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways across Scotland. By implementing a single diagnostic pathway for autism and ADHD, and by adopting a stepped care model, we hope to ensure that diagnostic and post-diagnostic support is provided in a timely and effective fashion.

Question reference: S6W-32800

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what it recommends to any women who have faced "medical misogyny" when asking for help and attempting to receive health care.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and supporting legislation, provides a specific right for people to make complaints, raise concerns, make comments and give feedback. The Act also places a duty on NHS Boards to thoroughly investigate and respond to any concerns raised, to take improvement actions where appropriate and to share learning from the views they receive. When a person has concerns about their treatment or care, this should be addressed at a local level through the NHS complaints procedure. When resolution is not possible the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the second and final stage in the complaints process.

The SPSO is independent from the provider of healthcare and Ministers, and looks into complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.

We are committed to openness and transparency in an NHS that welcomes all forms of feedback and uses it to inform continuous improvement.

More broadly, the Women’s Health Plan set out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women throughout their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

Question reference: S6W-32806

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to change any perception of coronary heart disease and heart attacks as diseases that only affect men, and to raise awareness among women of the diseases, in order that they know their own

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 – 2024 identified the need to shift the perception of heart disease in women. We delivered a successful awareness campaign throughout February 2023. In 2024, we worked closely with the ALLIANCE Scotland to improve awareness and engagement with women’s heart health through online webinars and resources.

More information can be found in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

Question reference: S6W-32809

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what strategies are in place to reduce any inequality faced by women, in light of them being statistically less likely to receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) than a man.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy 2021 – 2026 contains a commitment to addressing key inequalities in out of hospital cardiac arrest outcomes and references inequality in the provision of CPR in women.

Through the delivery of this strategy, Save a Life for Scotland partners have been working to address misconceptions about CPR and embed the knowledge that it is a gender neutral, life-saving technique.

Question reference: S6W-32805

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to reduce any inequality within women’s cardiac health, in light of research from the British Heart Foundation, which shows that women are 50% more likely than men to receive the wrong initial diagnosis for a heart attack.

We made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, published in August 2021. Actions taken and progress are outlined in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

Our ambition is that women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we develop the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Any future priorities will be determined in partnership with our stakeholders.