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-40247

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance is provided to NHS boards regarding exceptional prescribing arrangements in relation to funding orphan and ultra-orphan medicines not recommended by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

The Scottish Government is developing national good practice guidance in relation to NHS boards management of individual patient treatment requests, previously known as exceptional prescribing requests, for all newly licensed medicines, including orphan medicines, that have not been recommended by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

The guidance, which aims to support local decision-making on individual patient treatment requests through a consistent approach, will be published in due course.

Question reference: S3W-40250

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it has made of equity of access to orphan and ultra-orphan medicines between (a) NHS boards and (b) Scotland and other UK nations.

Decisions regarding the introduction of new medicines are taken by each of the UK countries through their own appraisal arrangements in line with established national priorities.

Scotland''s independent, robust and transparent arrangements for the appraisal of all newly licensed medicines focus on patients having equitable access to clinically and cost-effective medicines to treat all conditions throughout all parts of Scotland.

Decisions regarding the provision of NHS services are matters for NHS boards and clinicians are responsible for clinical decisions regarding the care of individual patients.

Equity of access to healthcare more generally is considered by the World Health Organization and other international organisations.

Question reference: S3W-40249

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the difference is between the criteria used by the Scottish Medicines Consortium in making judgements on ultra-orphan as opposed to orphan medicines.

Question reference: S3W-40279

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S3W-38040, S3W-38041, S3W-38607 and S3W-39444 by Keith Brown on 15 and 16 December 2010, 3 February and 3 March 2011 respectively, at what point the part of the iterative process for defining the timeline of the transport plan for the 2014 Ryder Cup that will involve infrastructure work at either Gleneagles or Blackford stations and associated roadworks will be (a) available for public comment, (b) concluded and (c) published.

Question reference: S3W-39866

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what savings could be made if sickness absence were reduced in all NHS boards to the (a) average and (b) lowest quartile of all boards.

The potential savings which could be made if sickness absence were reduced in all NHS Boards to (a) the average, and (b) the lowest quartile of all Boards, are detailed in the following table (based on absence rates within NHSScotland for the period 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010).

Potential Savings if Sickness Absence was NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate^{3, 4}

Potential Savings if Sickness Absence was Lower Quartile Rate ⁵

Total

£6,410,477

£22,684,618

The following table shows the NHSScotland Workforce reduction in sickness absence rates and the financial savings generated for the years 2005-06 to 2009-10.

Years	2005-06 to 2006-07	2006-07 to 2007-08	2007-08 to 2008-09	2008-09 to 2009-10
% Change in NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate⁶	0.32%	-0.26%	-0.34%	-0.20%
Savings generated⁷	(£13,814,182)	£12,102,882	£16,595,490	£10,050,433

Years

2005-06 to

2006-07

2006-07 to

2007-08

2007-08 to

2008-09

2008-09 to

2009-10

% Change in NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate⁶

0.32%

-0.26%

-0.34%

-0.20%

Savings generated⁷

(£13,814,182)

£12,102,882

£16,595,490

£10,050,433

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System.

Notes:

Potential savings do not include extra costs or losses in efficiency incurred by boards to cover absences (e.g. Bank, Agency and Locum costs).

Potential Savings are calculated as follows:

(Actual Sickness Absence Rate * Total Paybill Cost) - (Comparative Sickness Absence Rate * Total Paybill Cost).

Total Paybill Cost includes total pay plus employer contributions which, for NHSScotland for 2009-2010 (for permanent, fixed term and fixed/temporary contract types) was £5,125,491,302.

The NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate is the total working hours lost divided by the total contracted hours.

The NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate of 4.75% has been used to calculate potential savings in this scenario.

The Lower Quartile Sickness Absence Rate (4.33%) is the median of the lower half of NHS board''s sickness absence rates.

This is calculated as the difference between one financial year''s sickness absence rate and the previous financial year''s sickness absence rate. This is shown as a positive for an increase in the sickness absence rate and a negative for a decrease in the sickness absence rate.

Savings generated is calculated as: Total Paybill Cost * Percentage Change in sickness absence rate. A loss is shown in brackets.

Question reference: S3W-39994

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason the draft clinical standards in NHS Scotland Wheelchair and Seating Services - Clinical Standards Consultation do not refer to recommendation 3 of Moving Forward: Review of NHS Wheelchair and Seating Services in Scotland.

Draft Standard 1, Essential Criteria 1.1 states that clinical assessments of mobility and mobility needs are person-centred and anticipatory. This corresponds with the Quality Ambitions detailed in the Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHS Scotland, and also with recommendation 3 of Moving Forward, which states that at referral, assessment and provision, services will be led by requirements of users and carers.

Question reference: S3W-40278

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much (a) it saved between 1 December 2008 and 31 December 2009 and (b) extra it will spend between 5 January and 31 December 2011 due to changes to the rate of VAT, broken down by (i) directorate and (ii) public body.

VAT is the responsibility of individual public bodies and as such information on their VAT costs is not held centrally.

Figures are available in relation to savings in VAT paid in respect of the Scottish Government''s own VAT registration, covering core activities. These figures exclude NHS boards, local authorities and non-departmental public bodies.

During the period January 2009 to December 2009 the saving in expenditure resulting from the reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15% was:

Period January 2009 to December 2009

Directorate General	Saving £ million
Economy and Chief Economic Adviser	0.14
Education	0.23
Health and Chief Executive NHS Scotland	0.29
Justice and Communities	0.81
Permanent Secretary	0.33
Rural Affairs, Environment and Services	1.32
Total	3.12

In relation to extra costs during 2011 as a result of the VAT increase, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-34796 on 14 July 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Question reference: S3W-40092

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when the minutes of the project board of the Health Workforce Programme Board will be made public.

Question reference: S3W-40088

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether compensation is provided to NHS boards that lose trainee input as a result of decisions by regional medical workforce groups.

Question reference: S3W-40089

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that the regional medical workforce group in the NHS Fife area made decisions that resulted in the loss of trainee doctor input on maintaining the accident and emergency rota and, if so, whether it has issued guidance and consulted as a result.

NHS Fife made the decision to provide a minor injuries service at Victoria Hospital during out of hours periods in the interests of ensuring patient safety, avoiding the uncertainty involved in the previous contingency arrangements about when and from where full emergency services would be provided, and to establish the new single site working patterns that will be required when emergency services move to Victoria Hospital in early 2012 after completion of the major building project. The earlier problems were not caused by withdrawal of training numbers but by recruitment issues and gaps in rotas/lack of locums.