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-12274

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 5 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-08565 by Humza Yousaf on 1 June 2022, which states that 124 affected families had been contacted directly by NHS Lothian and offered a retest by that point, how many (a) families had been contacted directly by NHS Lothian and offered a retest of their child, (b) affected children had had a retest of their hearing or other appropriate audiological intervention, (c) affected children had an appointment but had not been seen and (d) affected children had been found to have a previously unidentified or misidentified hearing impairment as a result of having had a retest of their hearing, by 1 November 2022.

Question reference: S6W-12276

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 5 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05839 by Humza Yousaf on 21 January 2022, which states that the National Audiology Review Group will provide recommendations for a national plan for improvement in audiology, when the national plan will be published.

Question reference: S6W-12437

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 5 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on Childsmile in each of the last five financial years, broken down by year.

Funding provided to NHS Boards for Childsmile programme delivery is set out in the following table.

In addition to direct programme allocations, funding is provided to NHS Boards through the annual Outcomes Framework allocation to deliver a range of core services, including for Childsmile. The total value of this allocation for each of the five years is also set out below:

Year	Programme Allocation (£m)	Total Outcomes Framework (£m)
2017-18	2.0	68.0
2018-19	2.0	66.2
2019-20	2.3	75.7
2020-21	2.2	71.9
2021-22	1.4	74.1

Question reference: S6W-12234

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 5 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is the case that 30% of funding for the treatment of Long COVID has not yet been made available to NHS boards, and, if it is the case, what is the reason for its position on this matter, and when it plans to provide any remaining funding.

Territorial NHS Boards’ 2022-23 funding from the long COVID Support Fund has been split into two tranches. The first tranche (70%) was provided to NHS Boards in June. The second tranche (30%) will be made later in the financial year following progress reporting.

This is a well-established practice for the allocation of health board funding to account for any slippage in programme delivery, and is used across a range of policy areas.

Question reference: S6W-12443

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £142.723 million allocated to Mental Health Service Improvement in its 2022-23 budget has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

As set out in the Emergency Budget Review (EBR), published on 2 November, the Scottish Government’s mental health programme budget has been revised to £252 million. This has resulted in revisions to this year’s Mental Health Service Improvement budget line, which now stands at £119,109,000.

Actual expenditure will not be available until after the end of the financial year.

Following the EBR publication, we are engaging with those organisations which have been incurring spend in order to formally confirm the remainder of the 2022-23 funding allocations.

Question reference: S6W-12442

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £120 million allocated to the Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund in its 2022-23 budget has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

As set out in the Emergency Budget Review (EBR), published on 2 November, the Scottish Government’s mental health programme budget has been revised to £252 million. This has resulted in revisions to this year’s Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund budget line, which now stands at £104,754,000.

Actual expenditure will not be available until after the end of the financial year.

Following the EBR publication, we are engaging with those organisations which have been incurring spend in order to formally confirm the remainder of the 2022-23 funding allocations.

Question reference: S6W-12272

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it still expects to meet its commitment to have increased the number of GPs by 800 by 2027, and how many whole time equivalent (WTE) GPs have been recruited to date.

We are making good progress on our commitment to increase the headcount of GPs by 800, with Scotland’s GP headcount increasing by 277 from 4,918 to 5,195 from 2017 to 2021.

The most recent estimate for whole time equivalent of GPs can be found in the General Practice Workforce Survey 2019 , published by Public Health Scotland in October 2021. This estimated that there were 3,613 GP whole time equivalents (WTE) in Scotland in 2019. This is an increase of 93 WTE from an estimated 3,520 WTE in 2017, with 8 sessions per week equating to one WTE.

The latest data on GP WTE is scheduled to be published shortly by Public Health Scotland (PHS), and they have pre-announced publication of this analysis report for Tuesday 29 November 2022. PHS has also pre-announced publication of its latest annual data on GP headcount for Monday 12 December 2022.

Question reference: S6W-12115

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the proposed 4.5% pay award to NHS Scotland junior doctors for 2022-23 would be the equivalent of a real-terms pay decrease.

Question reference: S6W-11849

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6F-01451 by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 October 2022, how it plans to support those with complex disabilities whose energy costs, including for the operation of life-support equipment, are not fully reimbursed.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with health boards to ensure, as far as possible, that support for energy costs is available to those who require it.

Some patients already receive support for costs associated with home haemodialysis and the use of oxygen equipment. We have now written to all NHS territorial Boards to understand what support with fuel costs is available to patients using life-saving equipment.

We have already pledged almost £3 billion in this financial year towards helping families and households face the increased cost of living. This includes the provision of services and financial support not available elsewhere in the UK to help reduce every day costs and increase incomes.

Question reference: S6W-12109

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the new funding that it has provided in the current financial year to recruit additional staff for the NHS, and what the level of overseas recruitment has been.

Funding of £18 billion is provided for the health portfolio in 2022-23. This builds on frontline health spending in Scotland that, per head, is 2.2% (£74) higher than in Wales and 10.6% (£323) higher than in England - equivalent to around 10, 000 nurses and 44, 000 nurses, respectively - and takes investment in our frontline NHS Boards to £12.4 billion. This investment supports both existing staff costs and ongoing recruitment, in line with local workforce and service planning.

In addition to this, in October this year funding of £7.98 million was announced to recruit up to 750 nurses, midwives and allied health professionals to offset the up-front recruitment costs of international recruitment by the end of March 2023. Last winter we announced funding to build infrastructure within boards and support international recruitment to recruit at least 200 registered nurses. By the end of August 2022 c.230 nurses have been recruited. Boards may also independently pursue overseas recruitment for specific roles or indeed as part of a campaign and routinely do so.