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-25949

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 30 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many mothers prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy went on to have (a) stillborn births and (b) low birth weight babies, also expressed as a proportion of the number of mothers who were prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy in each year since 1999 and broken down by NHS board area.

Question reference: S2W-25954

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 30 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many requests were made to it under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 in each month since January 2005.

Most requests for informationare handled routinely and not all are recorded or counted centrally. In line withcentrally produced guidance, some requests for information are notified to the ScottishExecutive’s FOI Unit and recorded centrally. The Scottish Executive have publisheda report on information requests handling in the Scottish Executive for requestsreceived during 1 January to 31 December 2005; this is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 39491) and on the Freedom of Informationpages of the Scottish Executive website. The report shows the number of requestsnotified to the FOI Unit for each week in 2005. A report on the information requestshandling in the Scottish Executive for the first six months of 2006 will be publishedlater in the year.

Question reference: S2W-25956

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 30 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many asylum seekers living in Scotland were diagnosed as having a mental health problem in each year since 2000, also expressed as a percentage of the asylum seeker population.

Question reference: S2W-25760

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 24 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many females aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 suffered from chronic alcohol dependency in each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested ispublished by ISD and copies are available in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 39646).

Table 1 provides a breakdownof the number of females aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 dischargedfrom Scottish acute and general hospitals with a diagnosis of alcohol dependencein each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board area.

Table 2 provides a breakdownof the number of females aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 dischargedfrom Scottish mental illness hospitals and psychiatric units with a diagnosis ofalcohol dependence in 2000-01 and 2001-02, broken down by NHS board area.

Information for later years isnot yet available.

Question reference: S2W-25759

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 24 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many males aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 suffered from chronic alcohol dependency in each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested ispublished by ISD and copies are available in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 39645).

Table 1 provides a breakdownof the number of males aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 dischargedfrom Scottish acute and general hospitals with a diagnosis of alcohol dependencein each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board area.

Table 2 provides a breakdownof the number of males aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 17 to 19 and (c) 20 to 22 dischargedfrom Scottish mental illness hospitals and psychiatric units with a diagnosis ofalcohol dependence in 2000-01 and 2001-02, broken down by NHS board area.

Information for later years isnot yet available.

Question reference: S2W-25757

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children under six have been diagnosed with a mental illness in each NHS board area in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) type of illness and (b) age.

Question reference: S2W-25764

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what research it has carried out in the last two years into the link between mental health and social exclusion among the general population.

The Scottish Health Survey 2003and the 2004 National Scottish Survey of Public Attitudes to Mental Health, MentalWell-being and Mental Health Problems (Well? What do you think?), found thatrespondents’ experience of mental ill-health and their scores on a widely used standardmeasure of mental distress and psychological ill-health were both strongly relatedto a range of socioeconomic characteristics, including income, ease of managingon income and area deprivation. These add to an existing body of evidence, whichis summarised in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s 2004 report entitledMental Health and Social Exclusion.

Question reference: S2W-25761

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many psychiatric beds were available for 16 to 18-year-olds in each NHS board area in each year since 2001.

The specific information requestedis not collected centrally. However, figures for Adolescent Psychiatry (patientsaged between 13 and 17 years) are given in the following table.

Table 1. Average Staffed Bedsin Adolescent Psychiatric Specialties by NHS Board

NHS Board	Financial Year Ending 31st March
NHS Board	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005^P
Scotland	48	43	38	32	35
Dumfries and Galloway	12	-	-	-	-
Fife	10	10	3	-	-
Greater Glasgow	10	14	16	16	16
Lothian	9	12	12	12	12
Tayside	7	7	7	4	7

Source ISD(S)1

^PData for year ending March 2005 are provisional.

Question reference: S2W-25763

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staffed beds there were in psychiatric units in each NHS board area in each year since 2000.

The information requested isgiven in the following table.

Table 1. Average Staffed Bedsin Psychiatric Specialties by NHS Board

NHS Board	Financial Year Ending 31 March
NHS Board	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005^P
Scotland	8,145	7,745	7,345	7,145	6,950	6,558
Argyll and Clyde	949	916	882	857	829	786
Ayrshire and Arran	433	424	405	400	394	394
Borders	153	145	142	129	143	131
Dumfries and Galloway	282	180	159	149	157	172
Fife	589	547	522	487	477	464
Forth Valley	369	359	359	351	342	340
Grampian	733	686	659	657	604	547
Greater Glasgow	1,440	1,442	1,337	1,301	1,257	1,158
Highland	261	258	257	226	222	216
Lanarkshire	832	829	787	788	791	714
Lothian	1,208	1,138	1,131	1,135	1,109	1,021
Tayside	853	778	665	623	585	575
Western Isles	43	43	40	41	41	42

Source ISD(S)1.

^PData for year ending March 2005 are provisional.

Question reference: S2W-25758

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding packages which specifically target parents of children under five have been allocated to the Health Education Board for Scotland for the promotion of mental health issues since 2001.

The Health Education Board forScotland ceased to exist in 2003, when it amalgamated with the Public Health Institutefor Scotland to form NHS Health Scotland.

Throughtheir Early Years Programme, NHS Health Scotland has identified a need to support parents of very youngchildren around mental health issues. This need was identified in both the evaluationof the Ready Steady Baby resource and a Toddler Parenting Survey. To begin to addressthis identified need NHS Health Scotland has improved the mental health contentof the redeveloped Ready Steady Baby resource and included mental health issues(of both parent and child) in the development of material aimed at parents of toddlers.It is expected that both will be published by the end of this year.

The Health Education Board forScotland/NHS Health Scotland has not been allocated any specific funding packagesfrom the Scottish Executive for the promotion of mental health issues to targetparents of children under five since 2001. The work described above has been coveredfrom within NHS Health Scotland’s core budget from the Health Department.