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: S6O-04788

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to ensure that schools are tackling racism and racist bullying.

Question reference: S6O-04763

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is working to reduce the average time families spend in temporary accommodation.

Question reference: S6W-37588

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) adults and (b) children with type 1 diabetes it expects to onboard to closed-loop systems in 2025.

We expect to provide hybrid closed loop systems to at least 2500 people in the financial year 2025-2026. This builds on the more than 2100 people who received a hybrid closed loop system in 2024-2025.

The approach of this programme allows boards to manage their own financial allocation, but we expect children and young people to be prioritised, including those newly diagnosed across the year. This means it is not possible to provide an exact breakdown between adults and children but reporting across the year will allow us to track this nationally.

However, any child or young person living with Type 1 diabetes in Scotland should now have had, at minimum, a referral to receive a closed loop system.

Question reference: S6W-37589

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36792 by Jenni Minto on 7 May 2025, how much funding it has allocated to expanding access to diabetes technology for people with type 1 diabetes in the financial year 2025-26, broken down by NHS board.

The Scottish Government will be allocating an additional £6,252,000 to territorial boards in 2025-26 specifically to fund insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors (CGM). Additional funding of around £800,000 will be used to fund the National Onboarding Service and make improvements to digital infrastructure, including SCI-Diabetes and MyDiabetes MyWay.

A breakdown of funding being provided to each territorial Board can be found in the following table. Some additional funding has been provided to support development of digital infrastructure.

Health Board	Total Funding
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	£437,640
NHS Borders	£125,040
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	£187,560
NHS Fife	£437,640
NHS Forth Valley	£389,640
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	£1,202,400
NHS Grampian	£687,720
NHS Highland	£423,120
NHS Lanarkshire	£827,280
NHS Lothian	£923,280
NHS Orkney	£62,520
NHS Shetland	£62,520
NHS Tayside	£423,120
NHS Western Isles	£62,520
Total	£6,252,000

Question reference: S6F-04110

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 May 2025

To ask the First Minister, in light of recent reported incidents, how the Scottish Government is working to prevent knife crime.

Question reference: S6W-36792

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to provide additional financial support for NHS boards to allow more adults with type 1 diabetes access to closed-loop systems.

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding access to diabetes technology. Since 2016, we have invested almost £30 million to support expansion. Last year, we established a national programme aiming to provide over 2000 more people with access to hybrid closed loop technology.

We are pleased to confirm that further funding has been secured for this year and we will continue to expand access to a significant number of people.

Progress made last year means that most children and young people will now have access to Closed Loop Systems(CLS). Funding this year will support a significant number of adults, plus any under 18s that have recently been diagnosed and wish to use a CLS.

Question reference: S6W-36657

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is giving to NHS boards to ensure that patients currently on a waiting list are able to access the new digital dermatology pathway.

The scope of the digital dermatology pathway is for new referrals from primary care into secondary care dermatology services. The Scottish Government’s NHS Operational Improvement plan has set out that no one is waiting longer than a year new outpatient appointments and committed an additional £100 million in 2025-26 to target long waits for procedures that include diagnostic tests, resulting in an extra 150,000 appointments. The Scottish Government has been working closely with NHS health boards to target this investment and coordinate effective delivery to identify and address their own waiting lists.

Question reference: S6W-36655

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its NHS Scotland operational improvement plan, what assessment it has made of the impact of the digital dermatology pathway on waiting times for patients currently waiting to see a dermatologist.

The £1.8m Digital Dermatology programme referenced within the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan (OIP) is designed to reduce the number of patients who require a dermatology outpatient appointment through the creation of a digital triage system enabled through image capture within primary care.

The digital dermatology programme is now available in all 14 territorial health boards and is accessible to over 50% of GP practices across NHS Scotland. As referenced in the OIP, we continue to work towards full roll out to all GPs across Scotland by the end of Spring 2025.

For patients, evidence suggests that this will allow around 50% to be returned to the GP with advice or reassurance, without having an in-person appointment with a consultant. Some patients are also likely to be fast-tracked to further diagnostics or treatment based on assessment at this digital triage stage.

The Scottish Government commissioned National Elective Coordination Unit’s (NECU) work is complementing the national Digital Dermatology programme by focusing on high-volume patient validation within an accelerated timeline, as well as developing robust digital infrastructure for image capture and clinical triage, and ensuring a well-structured workforce model for governance and clinical safety.

The Scottish Government has worked with NECU to establish comprehensive governance arrangements and a workforce framework that promotes collaborative efforts across NHS Boards. This has enabled the onboarding of 18 dermatology consultants and the creation of digital infrastructure to support clinical workflows.

NECU’s dermatology campaign has already engaged four Health Boards – including NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Grampian, NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHS Highland - addressing the needs of patients waiting over 52 weeks and ensuring patient requirements are correctly recorded. As we progress, our goal is to continue leveraging these innovations to improve patient outcomes and streamline dermatological care delivery.

Question reference: S6W-36656

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 24 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with NHS boards to better inform patients of how long they will be waiting after being referred to see a dermatologist.

We expect Health Boards to write to patients when the patient is added to a waiting list for treatment to provide an estimation of their treatment date. In circumstances in which this cannot be provided, Boards are expected to signpost patients to an online platform where the patient can access further information about the waiting time for their agreed treatment in the responsible Health Board.

The revised Waiting Times Guidance, published in December 2023, includes a standard package of communications that all Health Boards should be providing. This ensures that patients are provided with clear communications throughout their care journey setting out what they should expect and their responsibilities while they are waiting for their appointment, test or treatment.

The guidance also makes clear that communications can be in any form that the patient has consented to, including via telephone, electronically or by post. It is important that patients are asked to confirm their needs at the beginning of their journey and their preferred format when receiving communication from the Health Board.

Question reference: S6O-04587

Current Status: Withdrawn