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: S4W-24905

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what developments there have been regarding the strategy, Equally Safe: Scotland's Strategy for Preventing and Eradicating Violence against Women and Girls, since its publication.

Since Equally Safe was published on 25 June 2014 positive progress has been made in a number of key areas. Building on the strategy, the Scottish Government committed in the Programme for Government to consult in 2015 on the potential to introduce a specific ‘domestic abuse’ offence and an offence against the sharing of intimate images – so-called ‘revenge porn’. The courts and Crown office have put in place additional resources to speed up the processing of cases, including cases involving domestic abuse and sexual offences, through the courts, and Police Scotland is currently piloting a disclosure scheme for domestic abuse in two locations – Aberdeen and Ayrshire.

In addition, the Scottish Government announced on 20 March 2015 that it will be investing £11.8 million from its equality budget (total £20.3 million) in a range of projects and services to tackle, raise awareness of, and support those affected by violence and abuse during 2015-16. This funding includes: £60,000 for a Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference development officer Scotland in connection with the commitment made by the Scottish Government in Equally Safe to ‘‘roll-out a National Framework for Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences’’, and £220,000 of funding to support work to tackle female genital mutilation in 2015-16.

Question reference: S4W-24900

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the membership is of the (a) Violence Against Women Joint Strategic Board and (b) violence against women strategy working groups.

Question reference: S4W-24902

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when each of the violence against women strategy working groups (a) has met, (b) will report on progress and (c) will report its recommendations to the joint strategic board.

As stated in the answer to S4W-24905 on 25 March 2015, positive progress is being made in a number of key areas and to take forward the early commitments made in Equally Safe. Unfortunately it has not been possible to move forward as quickly as originally envisaged in establishing the four expert working groups proposed in Equally Safe to inform the development of longer term action plans in the areas of: primary prevention; capacity and capability; justice, and accountability. We are currently looking at the timing and development of this longer term work.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S4W-24780

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) highest and (b) lowest bed occupancy was at Ospadal Uibhist agus Bharraigh [Uist and Barra Hospital] in Benbecula each week in 2014.

The following table shows average monthly occupancy rate (%) for Uist and Barra Hospital, NHS Highland between January and September 2014.

Occupancy rate (%) for Uist and Barra Hospital, by month.

	Jan 2014	Feb 2014	Mar 2014	Apr 2014	May 2014	Jun 2014	Jul 2014	Aug 2014	Sep 2014
Occupancy rate (%)	56.4	74.4	58.4	46.8	53.8	46.2	44.3	42.7	37.0

Source: Information Services Division Scotland, ISD(S)1

Official statistics on the number of hospital beds relating to the quarters ending December 2014 and March 2015 will be will be published by ISD on 31 March 2015 and in June 2015, respectively.

Question reference: S4O-04145

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage teenage girls to become and remain more active.

Question reference: S4W-24675

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what public consultation must be carried out by NHS boards before decisions are reached regarding reducing the number of hospital beds.

NHS boards are required to involve people in designing, developing and delivering the health care services they provide for them whether those services are delivered in hospital, in the community or at home. The Scottish Government has introduced guidance – ‘Informing, Engaging and Consulting People in Developing Health and Community Care Services’ (CEL(04)10) – which sets out responsibilities for all NHS boards to inform, engage and consult their patients and the wider public and how that process should work. The guidance is available at:

http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2010_04.pdf

Question reference: S4W-24597

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the waiting time targets are for out-of-hours NHS services and whether these are being met, broken down by NHS board,

NHS 24 acts as the first point of contact for patients during the out-of-hours period; its role is to help people access the services that best meet their needs.

As part of the Local Delivery Plan process, in 2013-14 NHS 24 was required to ensure 90% of GP priority and routine calls were responded to within 20 and 60 minutes respectively. Performance against these targets for 2013-14, was 99.97% for priority calls and 99.98% for routine calls.

Question reference: S4W-24596

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what maximum distance people are expected to travel to access out-of-hours healthcare, broken down by NHS board.

NHS 24 acts as the first point of contact for patients during the out-of-hours period; its role is to help people access the services that best meet their needs. This is a national telephone service, integral to the NHS in Scotland, which provides patients with healthcare advice and support when their GP practice is closed.

The provision of out-of-hours primary care services is a matter for NHS health boards to design, plan and manage in accordance with the needs of their populations. The Scottish Government would expect NHS boards to consider public transport accessibility, journey times, rurality and deprivation to ensure reasonable accessibility to all patients.

Question reference: S4W-24676

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to NHS Western Isles to allow elective surgery to be carried out at the Ospadal Uibhist agus Bharraigh (Uist and Barra Hospital), Benbecula.

The Scottish Government provides policies, frameworks and resources to all NHS boards, including NHS Western Isles, in order that they can plan and deliver the services that meet the needs of their local population. In terms of NHS Western Isles budget, from 2014-15 to 2015-16, the board’s budget will increase by £1.7 million (2.7%) from £62.2 million to £63.9 million.

I have asked NHS Western Isles to write to you directly about the elective surgery carried out and Uist and Barra Hospital.

Question reference: S4W-24673

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on making available the capital grant of approximately £450,000 that has been estimated to be required to furnish the Bethesda Care Home and Hospice to a standard that would help reduce the level of delayed discharges at Western Isles Hospital, Stornoway.