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-04613

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what requirements are placed on Scottish Swimming to communicate and represent all available training and qualification options in materials that it issues relevant to swimming teaching.

The Sport Governing body of Scottish Swimming are the guardians and custodians of their sport and it is entirely appropriate for them to promote the UK Coaching Certificate which is supported by all Devolved Administrations and is generally the recognised qualification for most sports in Scotland. It is not their role to promote commercial training and qualification options and therefore this is not a requirement placed upon them.

Question reference: S4W-04611

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what actions were agreed at the meeting on 27 September 2011 between sportscotland, Sport England, Scottish Swimming and the Swimming Teachers' Association.

Question reference: S4W-04529

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will carry out a public awareness campaign regarding the risks that might arise from second-hand smoke in cars and, if so, whether this will include those to (a) child passengers and (b) road safety for drivers.

As I indicated in response to S4O-00410 on 24 November 2010, we will explore what additional measures might be taken to further protect children and adults from the impact of second-hand smoke as we develop our new Tobacco Control Strategy. In the meantime we will continue to work with our health improvement partners, to do all we can to highlight the risks posed by second-hand smoke.

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-04497

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 20 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the comments made at page 20 of the Regulatory Reform Group Annual Report - 2011 that (a) “... there is no single register for alcohol licenses in Scotland every time central Government needs to put together national statistics or needs to examine issues in this area it has to write to each of the Licensing Boards across Scotland which causes unnecessary work ...” and (b) " ... the use of a single Licensing IT system would both provide greater consistency plus substantial resource savings currently put in to process additional information...this would not in any way take away from the ability of each Licensing Board to make its own individual decisions but would allow for consistent entry and processing and gathering of information."

Whilst a national database of licences could be of value, the benefits of such a system, including possible savings in data gathering costs and the easier availability of information would have to be set against the substantial costs of developing an IT system, providing training, rolling it out across 32 local authorities and then operating it. The costs of such a system would have to be met from licensing fees.

We will consider the views of those dealing with the alcohol licensing regime, such as COSLA and local authority licensing boards, as well as those involved in the sale of alcohol.

Question reference: S4W-04445

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what arrangements the NHS has in place to monitor the level of Panton-Valentine Leukocidin positive Staphylococcus aureus.

Whilst this information is not held for the NHS as a whole, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) produces quarterly and annual reports in which they highlight the importance of clinicians remaining vigilant to infections suggestive of PVL Staphylococcus aureus.

Advice includes that if a PVL S. aureus infection is suspected, the isolate should be submitted to the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory (SMRSARL) for toxin confirmation.

In addition to this, in 2008, the SMRSARL started testing all European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) (MRSA and MSSA blood isolates) and Snapshot (voluntary representative surveillance) isolates (MRSA all body sites) for the presence of the PVL gene. The results of this are published by HPS quarterly and annually.

Question reference: S4W-04446

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 December 2011

<>Health Protection Scotland (HPS) does not have PVL data on isolates pertaining to 2005 and 2007. In 2009 and 2010 the percentage of PVL Staphylococcus aureus isolates from the bacteraemia dataset was 0.6% and 1.3% respectively. For MRSA only, from the bacteraemia data set in 2009 and 2010, the percentage of PVL MRSA isolates was 0.2% and 0.6% respectively.

From the snapshot voluntary representative surveillance in 2009 and 2010 the percentage of PVL MRSA isolates was 2.4% and 2.8% respectively.

The combined snapshot and bacteraemia MRSA positive percentage of PVL positive isolates in 2009 and 2010 was 1.3% and 2.1% respectively. (There is no combined data for all S. aureus as the snapshot voluntary representative surveillance collects data on MRSA only).

Question reference: S4W-04010

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on Argyll and Bute Council's proposed (a) 20% reduction in adult learning service speech and language therapy budgets and (b) 50% reduction in funding for speech and language therapy for children and young people.

The speech and language therapy service in Argyll and Bute is jointly funded by NHS Highland and Argyll and Bute Council.

I understand that the council have discussed these proposed budget cuts with NHS Highland and have agreed to continue the current arrangements for these services in 2012-13 while a re-design of the service is developed and consulted on.

Funding for local authorities to purchase speech and language therapy is provided to local authorities by means of a block grant from Scottish Government. It is the responsibility of each local authority, as independent corporate bodies, to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategic objectives.

Question reference: S4W-04011

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish an up-to-date national audit of cardiac rehabilitation.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Heart Disease Programme National Overview Report, was published on the 28 September 2011. The report contains results from a cardiac rehabilitation audit, which shows that following a heart attack, people get access to high quality cardiac rehabilitation services.

The report can be found at:

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/programmes/cardiovascular_disease/heart_disease/heart_disease_reports.aspx.

We have provided further funding to allow the cardiac rehabilitation audit to continue to give us the best possible picture of cardiac rehabilitation services across the country.

Further analysis of data to identify levels cardiac rehabilitation provision for people with heart failure and acute angina has also been commissioned. We expect the final results to be available by the end of February 2012.

Question reference: S4O-00488

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to protect children and young adults from measles, in light of reports of a substantial rise in the number of cases in the south of England and across Europe.

We are not seeing significant numbers of measles cases in Scotland. The number of notifications of measles so far this year is very similar to the number reported last year, and we have had no reported cases of measles in Scotland since July. As our MMR uptake rates are very good – and better than other parts of the UK – we can be reassured that children in Scotland are very well protected.

However we are not complacent. There may be some older children in secondary school or young adolescents who are not fully protected. The Chief Medical Officer issued advice to the NHS in October regarding key actions which should be taken to minimise susceptibility to measles in these groups. This was based on expert advice from Health Protection Scotland, following a risk assessment of measles transmission in Scotland earlier this year.

Amongst other things, the Chief Medical Officer recommended that all children attending for their routine school-age booster should have their MMR vaccination status checked and, if necessary, additional MMR vaccination should be offered.

Question reference: S4O-00518

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when it last met NHS boards and what was discussed.