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: S2W-20289

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 16 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans further consultation with key fire service stakeholders regarding the future of emergency fire control rooms.

Question reference: S2W-20292

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 16 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Mott MacDonald report, The Future of Fire Service Control Rooms in Scotland, will directly influence its position in respect of the number of emergency fire control rooms.

Question reference: S2W-19857

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 3 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what action will be taken following the recent report that south Asians are more likely to suffer from fatal coronary heart disease.

I am aware of the report Heart Disease and South Asians, published jointly by the British Heart Foundation and the Department of Health in England. The report noted that South Asian people were more likely to die prematurely from coronary heart disease (CHD) than the general population. However, the report also noted that the reason for increased incidence of CHD cannot be fully explained.

Coronary heart disease has a number of common risk factors with diabetes, and people with diabetes have a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease. We have therefore set up an Ethnic Minority subgroup of the Scottish Diabetes Group to consider how to reduce risk factors and how to improve diabetes services for those who do develop the condition. This work, while focused on diabetes, will also reduce the risk of developing CHD.

More generally, we issued a Health Department Letter in 2002 (HDL (2002)51) which required NHS organisations to address the challenge of ethnic minority health and to develop local demographic profiles of access to services by all ethnic groups. We will also start to collect data on ethnicity as part of the SCI Coronary Heart Disease data and information system later this year. This will enable us to monitor incidence of CHD within the South Asian community in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-19869

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 3 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much public funding is committed for people with learning disabilities being placed in private sector-provided adult care institutions.

Question reference: S2W-19867

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 3 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of the existence of medium-sized private sector-provided adult care institutions for people with learning disabilities.

The Scottish Executive is aware of private sector adult care institutions that provide services for people with learning disabilities and that some local authorities and NHS boards are commissioning such services. Information is not held centrally about the amount of public funding being used for private sector care.

The Scottish Executive remains committed to the principles of The same as you? whereby adults with learning disabilities should be provided with the care and support they need to live, wherever possible, in the community.

Question reference: S2W-19868

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 3 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of the use by NHS boards or local authorities of private sector-provided adult care institutions for people with learning disabilities.

Question reference: S2W-19870

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 3 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers the provision of care in private sector-provided adult care institutions for people with learning disabilities to be consistent with the principle of moving away from institutional care, established in the The same as you?.

Question reference: S2W-19859

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how and when the recommendations of Report: Review of NHS 24 will be put into practice.

Of the 22 recommendations, most are for NHS 24 and the area NHS boards to progress, while some are for the health department. Work on a number of them has already begun. I expect the recommendations to be taken forward in partnership wherever that is appropriate and I also expect them to be delivered within the deadlines where these have been set. Progress will be monitored closely and shall be reported to me on a quarterly basis.

The priority for NHS 24 and all area NHS boards at the moment is to develop robust plans to deal with the expected winter demands on out of hours services. This addresses the first recommendation in the report.

Question reference: S2W-19858

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what action can be taken to further include ethnic minorities in health education schemes.

NHS Health Scotland who have the remit to promote health improvement are reviewing all materials and resources they publish, including their health promotion material, over the next six to twelve months to ensure ethnic and cultural factors associated with health and health care are considered.

In addition, NHS Scotland introduced the Equality and Diversity Impact Assessment Toolkit for both the Health Department and NHS Scotland in March 2005. The toolkit is intended to support consideration of equality and diversity issues in the design, development and delivery of policies and services across NHS Scotland which includes health education schemes.

Question reference: S2W-19860

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 1 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what action will be taken to provide the best possible standard of mental health provision for the elderly.

The Care Commission regulates and monitors standards within care homes, day care services and care at home services for the elderly, including those with mental health problems.

The NHS Health Scotland’s Later Life Programme and the Scottish Executive National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-Being are also working together to promote mental health and well-being in later life.

We will continue to work with the partner agencies to ensure that approaches to mental health awareness, prevention, protection and care extend to all ages.