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-11806

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 21 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to ensure that all clinical portals meet the standard in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights as underpinned by the judgement in I v Finland (20511/03).

European Court of Human Rights Judgment 20511/03 makes clear the measures that need to be in place to protect the confidentiality of health data relating to staff as well as patients. In relation to clinical portals, health boards have chosen solutions with comprehensive access permissions and audit trails.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has funded a national contract for a privacy breach detection tool that can work across multiple applications. This tool is already operational in some boards, and due to be released in all the territorial boards. These technical measures are backed up with an overall policy on accessing records on patients and staff, as well as training and guidance.

Question reference: S4W-11807

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 21 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government whether NHS (a) Ayrshire and Arran, (b) Highland, (c) Grampian, (d) Forth Valley, (e) Shetland and (f) Western Isles has a clinical portal and, if not, when it will have one.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Grampian, Forth Valley and Western Isles all have advanced plans for making the clinical portal priority information available to frontline staff during 2013.

NHS Highland and Shetland are still considering their options based on the experiences of other boards.

The eHealth Strategy commits that by 2014 all territorial Health boards will be using clinical portals (or electronic windows to information) and the priority items agreed by clinicians will be available at the point of care. This commitment is on track for successful delivery.

Question reference: S4O-01672

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing last met the chief executive officers of NHS boards.

Question reference: S4W-11711

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients were removed from the cancer waiting time targets due to death in each of the last two years and how many of those were beyond the 62-day target.

Question reference: S4W-11618

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 17 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many doctors in forensic paediatrics at levels (a) ST6, (b) ST7 and (c) ST8 there (a) were in 2010-11 and (b) are currently.

The specific information requested is not available centrally.

Furthermore, “forensic paediatrics” is not a recognised sub-specialty training programme within the current educational training programme. Those wishing to specialise in forensic paediatrics will usually train in community child health, which includes training in child protection and which may include an element of specialist training in forensic paediatrics. Others will train in general paediatrics.

Question reference: S4W-11612

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what risk assessment it has made of the effect on recruitment for third sector organisations receiving Scottish Government funding that will cease in under six months.

Question reference: S4W-10723

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the planned reduction in NHS FYO1 posts, what reductions there will be in the intake of (a) students from Scotland, (b) non fee-paying students, (c) fee-paying students from the rest of the UK and (d) students from outwith the EU in each of the next three years.

Question reference: S4W-10720

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what the change in funding for each university nursing department (a) is in 2012-13 and (b) will be in 2013-14 as a result of the reduction in the student nursing intake in 2010-11 and 2011-12 and how many redundancies each institution expects.

The funding for each nursing school for 2011-12 and 2012-13 is detailed below for comparison. As the intakes for 2013-14 have yet to be decided there are no figures for that academic year.

Year	Institution	Total funding
2011-12	Dundee	7,526,720
	Edinburgh Napier	10,877,280
	Glasgow Caledonian	9,687,040
	Robert Gordon	5,332,000
	Stirling	6,749,280
	West of Scotland	15,170,400
Total		£55,342,720
2012-13	Dundee	7,736,256
	Edinburgh Napier	11,179,476
	Glasgow Caledonian	9,970,686
	Robert Gordon	5,487,174
	Stirling	6,923,070
	West of Scotland	15,655,662
Total		£56,952,324

Data from the Scottish Funding Council

Universities are independent bodies and they manage their own resources, including their staffing requirements for future academic years.

Question reference: S4W-11624

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-10963 by Alex Neil on 29 November 2012, how many patients have been affected by the use of (a) off licence and (b) unlicensed prescription medicines by the NHS in the last two years for which information is available.

As stated in my answer to question S4W-10963, medicine safety issues are subject matters of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 and are currently reserved issues.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency which is the UK government agency responsible for the regulation of medicinal products and medical devices, does collect information on adverse drug reactions, including those relating to off licence use, via their yellow card reporting system.

However, the system does not distinguish whether or not the medicine has been used on an unlicensed or off-label basis. Likewise, the NHS Information centre also has a system for collecting data, in their case from hospital admissions/episodes, and their system also does not distinguish between licensed and non-licensed use. Further information on the yellow card scheme is available at:

https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk.

Question reference: S4W-11615

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in achieving the five recommendations on forensic paediatric services in respect of (a) child sexual abuse and (b) child physical abuse and neglect that are contained in the report, Forensic Paediatrics: A Report by the Short Life Working Group.

The Report on Forensic Paediatrics in Scotland was published on
21 November 2012. The recommendations contained in the report will be progressed within the Scottish Government work programme to improve the consistency of healthcare and forensic medical services in Scotland. This will include oversight and co-ordination arrangements, the development and implementation of proposals for a national approach to address possible future developments of the service, and oversight of the Forensic Paediatrics in Scotland Report.