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-32205

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many specialist rheumatology nurses there are in each NHS board.

Question reference: S3W-32212

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) nurses and (b) doctors specialise in neonatal care, broken down by NHS board.

The information as requested is not held centrally. Information on staff in post in NHSScotland is published annually by National Services Scotland, as part of the workforce census as at 30 September each year and does include clinical nurse specialties and doctors working in paediatric specialties.

(a) Data for clinical nurse specialists in neonatology by NHS board is available at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html#cns.

(b) Data for hospital, community and public health services staff in paediatric specialties by grade and NHS board is available at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5896.html.

Question reference: S3W-32209

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many babies required neonatal care in each of the last three years, broken down by NHS board.

Data for calendar years 2005-07, the latest three complete years, and provisional data for 2008 are shown in the following table:

Table 1: Number of Babies Discharged from Neonatal Units¹ by NHS Board of Treatment. Year Ending 31 December 2005-08

	2005	2006	2007	2008^P
Scotland	5,955	6,224	6,197	5,811
Ayrshire and Arran	365	361	384	319
Borders	96	107	98	116
Dumfries and Galloway	196	212	205	188
Fife	340	346	320	393
Forth Valley	238	257	275	276
Grampian	791	783	870	730
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1,388	1,643	1,568	1,364
Highland	261	281	299	284
Lanarkshire	829	870	830	791
Lothian	927	855	880	856
Tayside	519	505	462	490
Islands	5	4	6	4

Source: Scottish Birth Record.

^PProvisional.

Note: 1 Includes special care baby units, high dependency units and intensive care units.

Question reference: S3W-32211

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average occupancy rate was for each specialist neonatal unit in each of the last three years, broken down by NHS board.

Information on bed occupancy rates in neonatal units for each NHS board in the years ending 31 March 2007 to 2009 is shown in the following table.

NHSScotland - Average Bed Occupancy in Neonatal Units; by NHS Board: Years Ending 31 March 2007-09

	2007	2008	2009^P
Scotland	66	66	68
Ayrshire and Arran	76	87	79
Borders	29	30	61
Dumfries and Galloway	63	68	58
Fife	53	53	51
Forth Valley	60	55	62
Grampian	64	69	71
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	64	64	66
Highland	80	81	79
Lanarkshire	89	86	78
Lothian	66	65	70
Orkney	-	-	-
Shetland	-	-	-
Tayside	75	63	69
Western Isles	-	-	-

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland [ISD(S)1]. Reference: ISD/HIG/IR2010-00647. Date: 09/03/10.

Question reference: S3W-32208

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what waiting time target applies to patients with early rheumatoid arthritis who have seen a consultant and begun a course of drug treatment yet need to attend follow-up appointments with a consultant in order to measure response to drug treatment and disease activity.

Question reference: S3W-32207

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what waiting time target applies to patients who have seen a consultant and begun treatment yet need to attend follow-up appointments with their consultant throughout the course of treatment in order to measure response to drug treatment and disease activity.

Question reference: S3W-32215

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the recent 30th birthday baby report by Bliss, what action will be taken to address the pressures on neonatal units that can result in the closure of units to new admissions.

Work to develop Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) for neonatal services is underway and funding and support are being provided to the three regional planning directors to assist this process. In addition, an expert advisory group is being set up to co-ordinate the approaches taken by the three regional MCNs.

NHSScotland has developed and tested a neonatal nursing workload and workforce tool that will identify the nursing needs of this vulnerable group of babies. The tool is now being implemented across all Scottish neonatal units and will help to develop quality measures for neonatal care and equip NHS boards with valuable information that will inform their planning and provision of services.

To further increase the nursing capacity, the Scottish Government has funded the training of 20 advance neonatal nurse practitioners to date and has recently invested £100,000 in neonatal education. A further £160,000 has been invested in training this year.

Question reference: S3W-32210

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many neonatal beds there are in each NHS board.

The most recent information collected by Information Services Division on the number of neonatal cot spaces for each NHS board is as follows:

NHSScotland - Average Available Staffed Beds in Neonatal Units; by NHS Board: Year Ending 31 March 2009^P

	2009^P
Scotland	349
Ayrshire and Arran	21
Borders	5
Dumfries and Galloway	11
Fife	20
Forth Valley	26
Grampian	38
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	106
Highland	13
Lanarkshire	29
Lothian	58
Orkney	-
Shetland	-
Tayside	23
Western Isles	-

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland [ISD(S)1], Reference: ISD/HIG/IR2010-00648. Date: 09/03/10.

Question reference: S3W-31721

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many teeth were extracted in the (a) NHS general, (b) hospital and (c) community dental service setting in 2009, broken down by NHS board.

Centrally held information on the number of teeth extracted is only available for NHS General Dental Services (GDS). The following table shows, by NHS Board, the number of teeth extracted in the GDS setting in 2008-09.

Number of Teeth Extracted in the NHS General Dental Service Setting in 2008-09

NHS Board	Number of Teeth Extracted
Scotland	485,698
Ayrshire and Arran	42,883
Borders	8,336
Dumfries and Galloway	11,853
Fife	32,491
Forth Valley	26,762
Grampian	31,344
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	137,618
Highland	21,048
Lanarkshire	60,166
Lothian	72,533
Orkney	1,056
Shetland	1,752
Tayside	35,273
Western Isles	2,583

Source: MIDAS (Management Information and Dental Accounting System)

Notes:

1. This data relates to dental treatment carried out under NHS General Dental Service arrangements and excludes the Community Dental Service, Hospital Dental Service and private dental treatment.

2. The data above relates to the number of item of service claims for dental extractions.

3. Extractions (for children in particular) will include those required for orthodontic diagnosis rather than those due to decay. It is not possible to distinguish between orthodontic and non-orthodontic extractions.

4. Data accuracy is dependent on MIDAS data quality and may be affected by errors at source such as data entry, coding and scanning inaccuracies.

5. NHS board is based on the dental practice postcode.

Question reference: S3W-31722

Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) women and (b) men aged (i) 16 to 34, (ii) 35 to 54 and (iii) 55 and over are estimated to have no natural teeth.

The answer is provided in the following table:

Table 1. Percentages of (a) women and (b) men aged (i) 16 to 34, (ii) 35 to 54 and (iii) 55 and over are estimated to have no natural teeth.

	Percentage
Age Group	Women	Men
16-34	0.5	0.3
35-54	3.5	2.8
55+	34.0	24.4

Source: Scottish Health Survey 2008.