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-14786

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2008
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 July 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many vacancies exist for (a) home economics teachers and (b) physical education teachers, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S3W-14065

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive by how much the rate of prescribing anti-depressants reduced in 2007-08.

The number of anti-depressants prescribed in 2007-08 increased by 7.7% between April 2007 and March 2008.

This is an expected and direct consequence of changes to the Quality and Outcomes Framework under which general practitioners are remunerated, which encourages the identification and treatment of depression.

The Scottish Government, working with NHS boards and other partners, is developing greater availability of psychological therapies and self-help approaches in line with the evidence base for effective treatment of depression.

We believe that over time this will help achieve our target to reduce the annual rate of increase of defined daily dose per capita of anti-depressants to zero by 2009-10 and put in place the required support framework to achieve a 10% reduction in future years.

Question reference: S3W-14124

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether dental patients who are not registered with the NHS have full rights of access to out-of-hours NHS emergency treatment.

Question reference: S3W-14123

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what psychological support is available for people with type 1 diabetes.

We set out in Better Health, Better Care our recognition of the need for improved psychological support for people living with any long-term condition. An important way of achieving that aim is to make sure that people are aware of the full range of information and support available to them, including the contribution of the voluntary sector.

The Diabetes Action Plan, published in June 2006, recognised the need to improve access to psychological and emotional support for people with diabetes in all parts of Scotland. It placed a specific responsibility on the diabetes managed clinical networks to ensure that existing staff training courses are informed by behaviour change models and a sense of the importance of empowering people with diabetes.

The Scottish Diabetes Group has encouraged the development of a training course designed to achieve improvements in the training of healthcare professionals involved with diabetes care with respect to psychological issues, including the identification of depression and anxiety. The courses became available in January 2008 and will run for two years.

The Scottish Government is also supporting a three-year initiative with the Royal College of General Practitioners and partners which involves working with community health partnerships on the services provided by GP practices for those with diabetes who are also suffering from depression.

Question reference: S3W-14121

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been diagnosed with (a) type 1 and (b) type 2 diabetes in each of the last five years.

The information requested is given in the following table.

Year	Type 1	Type 2
2002	1,036	14,401
2003	1,091	15,688
2004	1,026	17,071
2005	950	16,144
2006	971	16,577
2007	1,052	17,037

Source: Scottish Diabetes Survey / SCI-DC.

Question reference: S3W-14122

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what action is being taken to ensure that the level of transitional care is appropriate for children with diabetes to move to adult services.

The Diabetes Action Plan, published in June 2006, highlights the importance of ensuring that young people with diabetes experience a smooth transition from services provided by paediatric teams into the adult service.

The diabetes managed clinical networks are expected to have in place plans and protocols for such transitions. From information they provided in March 2008, it is clear that each board either has these arrangements in place, or is in the process of developing them.

Transitional care is part of the remit of the sub-group set up by the Scottish Diabetes Group to look at issues relating to the management of type 1 diabetes.

We welcome the advice for young people themselves on the issue of moving from children to adult services contained in the information pack Making Connections, recently published by Diabetes UK Scotland.

Question reference: S3W-14066

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made to improve the early diagnosis and management of patients with dementia.

From April 2008 NHS boards are required to achieve improvements in the early diagnosis and management of patients with dementia by March 2011. NHS boards will be supported in this work by the Mental Health Collaborative.

In addition, we are investing £600,000 through Alzheimer Scotland and the Dementia Services Development Centre to examine better and earlier structured intervention, support and information for service users and families immediately following the first diagnosis of dementia. This initiative advances key findings from our recently published report on early intervention attention in Forth Valley.

Question reference: S3W-14067

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many additional weeks of respite care were made available in each local authority area in 2007-08.

Question reference: S3W-14068

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 June 2008

Question reference: S3W-14063

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 June 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children aged three to five were registered with an NHS dentist in each of the last five years.