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: S3W-10053

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what evaluation has been made of dental health for under five-year-olds in (a) the Dunfermline East parliamentary constituency, (b) Fife and (c) Scotland.

The National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) provides an essential source of information for tracking changes in the dental health of Scottish Children. Key age groups are targeted: at entry into school in primary one (P1) and in primary seven (P7) before the move to secondary school.

The 2006 National Dental Inspection Programme of Scotland on P1 children contains the information on (b) Fife and (c) Scotland. The information is not held for parliamentary constituencies.

http://www.scottishdental.org/docs/ndip_scotland2006_mainP1report.pdf.

Question reference: S3W-10048

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many women suffering from total hair loss were prescribed (a) real hair wigs and (b) acrylic wigs in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S3W-10083

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to ensure that disabled people and elderly people have more access to hydrotherapy pools.

Question reference: S3W-10086

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many vacancies there are for physiotherapists.

Question reference: S3W-10084

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what skills shortages there are in the NHS, broken down by speciality or profession.

Information on skills shortages broken down by speciality or profession is not held centrally.

Work to implement the Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) in NHS Scotland is on-going and will give NHSScotland boards a clearer understanding of the skills and knowledge base across a range of staff grades. NHS boards have been set a target of ensuring that all relevant employees have an agreed KSF Personal Development Plan by 31 March 2009.

More generally, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is working with other health boards to ensure that any generic skills gaps are addressed through appropriately tailored education and training packages. Recent examples of this include on-going work to develop capability and educational frameworks for administrative, clerical and support staff; work on developing new roles at assistant practitioner level, and education and training in respect of healthcare acquired infection (HAI). Through its other programmes in relation to medical trainees, nurses and allied health professionals, NES is ensuring that relevant staff are able to update their skills on a continuous basis.

More information on the NHSScotland workforce, which includes an overview of those areas where supply and demand are in imbalance can be found in Better Health, Better Care: Planning Tomorrow''s Workforce Today published by the Scottish Government on 14 December 2007 and available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/12/13102832/0.

Question reference: S3W-10041

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what safeguards are being considered to protect those whose behaviour is considered to be nuisance behaviour on NHS healthcare premises but which is symptomatic of a medical condition or due to a disability.

Question reference: S3W-10049

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it has received on the legality under EU law of the French Government’s decision to change its rules regarding access to healthcare for citizens of Scotland.

Question reference: S3W-10054

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of the effect of NHS board budgets on the provision of drug rehabilitation programmes.

The government is not aware of any assessment of the effect of NHS board budgets on the provision of drug treatment and rehabilitation programmes.

The government has asked Audit Scotland to undertake, as a matter of urgency, a report on the scale and effectiveness of current public expenditure on drug treatment. A report will be published no later than spring 2009 and this will help guide future spending decisions.

Question reference: S3W-10039

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps NHS Scotland is taking to improve data on cancer, monitor the quality of service given to skin cancer patients and raise public awareness of the health impact of excessive ultraviolet B rays on members of the public and schoolchildren

Information on cancer incidence is held by Scottish Cancer Registry, a comprehensive national registry of new cancer cases annually.

Data on cancer incidence in Scotland are also available by age group and year (1980 to 2004) on the Information Services Division website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/files/cancer_all_types_inc.xls.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland is responsible for setting clinical standards for NHS services and for assessing service quality. It is expected that clinical standards applicable across all cancer services will be published by the summer of 2008. Details are available from:

www.nhshealthquality.org.

Regional skin cancer networks are responsible for monitoring the quality of care provided.

NHS Health Scotland is responsible for health education and related issues and provides a range of materials to promote public education about the dangers of exposure to ultraviolet radiation. In addition, NHS boards are responsible for the delivery of local health promotion activities and programmes as required to meet the needs of their local populations.

The National Health Promoting Schools website, funded by Scottish government, provides information and resources to help schools take positive steps towards better health and wellbeing, including tips on sun protection.

Scottish Government continues to contribute to the SunSmart Campaign, which is run by Cancer Research UK in partnership with government across the UK. SunSmart is aimed at raising awareness of the risks of developing skin cancer and the actions people should take to limit their sun exposure.

In addition, we plan to carry out some awareness raising related to the risks of sunbed use if our proposals for sunbed regulation, to be brought forward at stage 2 of the Public Health (Scotland) Bill, are passed by the Parliament.

Question reference: S3W-10044

Asked by: Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many visiting surgeons from EU member states have carried out operations in NHS Scotland since May 2007; how much they were paid, and how many operations they performed.