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-22584

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it is reportedly the only administration in the UK that is not delivering a government-funded public health face, arm, speech, time (FAST) stroke media campaign.

Priority two in our new Stroke Improvement Plan , published in June is focused on awareness raising and includes a commitment to establishing the current degree of public understanding of FAST and stroke symptoms.

This work is currently underway and will help inform the most effective way of raising public awareness of stroke symptoms, including FAST campaigns.

In addition to FAST campaigns, we will also consider how awareness of the less common symptoms of stroke can be increased. We will continue to work with third sector organisations to consider how best to deliver future public health campaigns to raise awareness of stroke symptoms.

Question reference: S6W-22587

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to women of menopausal age who have a disability, long-term health condition, or identify as an ethnic minority.

The Women’s Health Plan recognises that many women face multiple and often overlapping disadvantages and barriers to health and healthcare. That is why we aim to take an intersectional approach across all the actions in the Women’s Health Plan, so that all women enjoy the best possible health throughout their lives.

This includes the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform which has comprehensive information on menopause translated into five languages, easy read and BSL.

We are working closely with The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) who continue to support the work of the Plan through their dedicated lived experience programme. This included a series of webinars on menopause, with live British Sign Language interpretation as well as visual resources. The resources are available online, or via hard copy.

The ALLIANCE have also produced a toolkit for delivering Conversation Cafes to facilitate informed and open conversations among women about women’s health – including menopause - with an accompanying resource hub . This model also supports the sharing of information with women who cannot or prefer not to access information online.

Question reference: S6W-22583

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what efforts are being made to increase the number of psychologists with protected time for stroke clinical and neuropsychology roles, in light of the findings of the Stroke Association that there are only 7.8 full-time equivalent psychologists for every 128,000 people in Scotland who are living with the effects of stroke.

While the Scottish Government holds information on the number of overall psychology posts and vacancies, we do not hold information on specialty psychology roles. Decisions on such specialty roles are for Health Boards to address.

Psychology staffing has more than doubled (+131.6%, as of 30 June 2023) since 2007 and we are increasing the postgraduate student intake for Psychology Masters and Doctorate programmes by a total of 60 trainees between 2021 and 2023.

We published a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Plan on 7 November, which set out the actions we will take to ensure we have a resilient and sustainable workforce, with the right skills who are able to deliver the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

Question reference: S6W-22582

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings by the Stroke Association that no NHS board is delivering satisfactory psychological care to stroke survivors.

Monitoring of performance against the nationally agreed criteria in the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme, which now includes a requirement to demonstrate adequate provision of psychological support, allows us to identify where challenges are being faced in the delivery of high-quality stroke care and supports the implementation of quality improvements.

Demonstrating provision of post-stroke psychological care is a new requirement for NHS Boards and therefore it will take time for implementation to be successful.

The Scottish Government expects NHS Boards to increase performance against the criteria outlined in the review process, and we will work with them to support this.

Question reference: S6O-02795

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how the Staff Cost Provision uprating for 2024-25 will be calculated.

Question reference: S6W-22289

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to fund the recently announced additional £100 million in each of the next three years to reduce NHS waiting lists.

The new annual funding will allow us to maximise capacity, build greater resilience into the system and deliver year-on-year reductions in the number of patients who have waited too long for treatment. It is expected the additional £100 million investment will help reduce inpatient and day-case waiting lists by an estimated 100,000 patients over three years.

As you know, decisions on the Government’s spending plans for 2024-25 and future years are subject to the outcome of the Scottish Budget process and associated approval by the Scottish Parliament. Therefore decisions on the allocation of this funding will be made following this process, along with more detail on year-on-year reductions. The Scottish Government intends to present the Draft Budget 2024-25 to Parliament on 19 December 2023.

Modelling scenarios that supported this are based on all inpatient/day-case specialities with a clear focus on the highest number of patients waiting for treatment, including ENT, General Surgery, Trauma and Orthopaedics and Ophthalmology. The modelling builds-in the capacity created through the implementation of productive opportunities and the redesign and expansion of community services, such as the Community Glaucoma Service and General Ophthalmic Services, as well as efficiencies such as regional and national working and maximising theatre capacity, including the new NTCs, through extended working.

Question reference: S6W-22292

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its recent commitment to invest an additional £100 million in each of the next three years to reduce NHS waiting lists, what the estimated reduction in waiting lists will be by the end of (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.

Question reference: S6W-22290

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to allocate the recently announced additional £100 million in each of the next three years to reduce NHS waiting lists.

Question reference: S6W-22291

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its recent commitment to invest an additional £100 million in each of the next three years to reduce NHS waiting lists, what (a) modelling was undertaken to determine that waiting lists will be reduced by 100,000 by 2026 and (b) the estimated level of waiting lists by 2026 would be without this funding package.

Question reference: S6W-22567

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of the Specialty Delivery Groups that have been established to date by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, including their (a) membership, (b) terms of reference and/or objectives and (c) outcomes (i) anticipated and (ii) achieved.

NHS Scotland’s Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG’s) have been established to support, innovate and develop high quality services across Scotland, reducing unwarranted variation, promoting a 'best in class' services and, where appropriate, a 'once for Scotland' approach.

The multi-disciplinary groups, which include clinician and operational managers, have remit across the following areas: Processes, Pathways, Workforce, Innovation and Measurement.

The SDGs provides strategic direction for the work-programme in the following specialities:

Cataract
Dermatology
Ear Nose and Throat
Gastroenterology
General Surgery
Gynaecology
Neurology
Orthopaedics
Rheumatology
Symptomatic Breast
Urology
Vascular Surgery

The groups focus on implementation of existing proven programmes such as Actively Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) and discharge Patient Initiated Review (PIR) and high impact changes such as Day Surgery and Enhanced Recovery after Surgery.

ACRT and PIR focus on 6 key specialties: Dermatology, ENT, General Surgery, Gynaecology, Orthopaedics, and Urology. Between April 2022 to March 2023, these specialties have managed almost 66,000 referrals through ACRT by returning patients to primary care and almost 43,000 patients were added to discharge PIR pathways.

SDGs also have a key role in establishing and embedding new approaches and innovations, such as Cytosponge and Colon Capsule Endoscopy.

Further information about each of the SDG’s can be found on CfSD’s website.