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-24978

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 28 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-23334 by Mr Andy Kerr on 6 March 2006 and given that the annual report of the Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections surveillance programme stated that uptake of the programme among acute care divisions had been “challenging”, whether Health Protection Scotland’s national survey of healthcare associated infections will be compulsory for acute care divisions.

Question reference: S2W-24979

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 28 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-23334 by Mr Andy Kerr on 6 March 2006, whether it will list the types of hospital acquired infections which will be included in Health Protection Scotland's national survey.

The national prevalence surveyof Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) includes all types of HAIs. The listincludes infections in bone and joint, bloodstream, central nervous system, cardiovascular,ear, nose and throat, gastrointestinal, respiratory, reproductive, surgical site,skin and urinary tract.

The survey is also collectingorganism data, information on invasive devices and antibiotic prescribing data.

Question reference: S2W-24972

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 27 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many speech and language therapists there have been in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board area.

Information on speech and languagetherapists in NHS Scotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics websiteunder Workforce Statistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Section F gives details of alliedhealth professional staff employed in NHS Scotland. In particular, table F1 andF2 shows the whole-time equivalent (WTE) and headcount number of speech and languagetherapists by NHS board from 1995 onwards. Latest available figures are at 30 September 2005.

In the period 2000-05, therehas been an 12.1% growth in the number of whole time equivalent qualifiedSpeech and Language Therapists in NHSScotland.

Question reference: S2W-24974

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-19912 by Mr Andy Kerr on 16 November 2005, how many incidences of tuberculosis there were in (a) 2004 and (b) 2005, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested isshown in the following table:

	2004*	Incidence Rate per 100,000 Population in 2004⁪	2005*	Incidence Rate⁪
Argyll and Clyde	17	4.1	31	N/A
Ayrshire and Arran	6	1.6	0	N/A
Fife	16	4.5	12	N/A
Forth Valley	5	1.8	4	N/A
Grampian	23	4.4	25	N/A
Greater Glasgow	173	20.0	155	N/A
Highland	9	4.3	11	N/A
Lanarkshire	35	6.3	23	N/A
Lothian	82	10.4	81	N/A
Tayside	16	4.1	4	N/A
All other NHS Boards†	7	2.2	3	N/A
Total	389	7.7	349	N/A

Notes:

*Data for 2004 and 2005 are provisional.

†To avoid deductive disclosureof cases from small numbers, data for NHS boards with few or no cases were aggregated.

⁪ Mid-2004 population estimates (General Registrar Scotland) wereused to calculate incidence rate for 2004 cases. Mid-2005 population estimates arenot yet available, therefore incidence rates could not be reliably determined for2005 cases.

Question reference: S2W-24975

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of tuberculosis there have been identified in educational establishments each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isnot held centrally by local authority but is available by NHS board as shown inthe following table:

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004*	Total
Argyll and Clyde	7	3	3	1	0	14
Ayrshire and Arran	0	2	0	1	1	4
Fife	0	0	1	1	4	6
Grampian	2	5	9	3	6	25
Greater Glasgow	17	16	23	18	29	103
Lanarkshire	0	3	8	0	4	15
Lothian	4	2	4	7	12	29
Tayside	2	3	0	1	2	8
All other NHS Boards†	0	1	0	2	0	3
Total	32	35	48	34	58	207

Notes:

*Data for 2004 isprovisional

†To avoid deductivedisclosure of cases from small numbers, data for NHS boards with few or nocases were aggregated.

Question reference: S2W-23761

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 16 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-10320 by Peter Peacock on 17 September 2004, whether any agencies hold the information on literacy in Scotland and, if so, which agencies.

Question reference: S2W-23828

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 14 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-4176 by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 December 2003, what the average number of cots available in neonatal units has been in each year since 2001-02, broken down by NHS board area.

Table 1: Average available staffed cots in neonatal units;

By Health Board Area: Years Ending 31 March 2002-04

NHS Board	2002	2003	2004
Argyll and Clyde	28	27	28
Ayrshire and Arran	25	25	25
Borders	8	8	8
Dumfries and Galloway	12	5	10
Fife	20	20	17
Forth Valley	17	17	20
Greater Glasgow	78	78	80
Grampian	41	38	38
Highland	18	12	12
Lanarkshire	24	20	21
Lothian	59	58	58
Tayside	22	25	29
Scotland	351	332	347

Source: ISD Scotland [ISD(S)1].

The figures for year ending 31 March 2005 have not yet been verified and published.

Question reference: S2W-23236

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has implemented the decision of the Parliament in relation to motion S1M-3375, as agreed on 12 September 2002.

I can confirm that, in 2004, NHS Greater Glasgow undertook a review of the assumptions underpinning the board’s decision to move to two accident and emergency. The board considered a report of that review in February 2005 and agreed that the assumptions remained valid. I can also confirm that both a North and a South Monitoring group were established following the debate on NHS Greater Glasgow’s acute services on 12 September 2002. Both Monitoring Groups meet regularly and their remit includes monitoring of the retention of named services at Stobhill and Victoria Hospitals; raising concerns with NHS Greater Glasgow, and allowing stakeholder involvement in service design and other key aspects of the Acute Services Plan. I recently met with both chairs of the groups and am keen for the groups to continue to carry out their monitoring roles until the new hospitals are operating. I can also confirm that Audit Scotland agreed that PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) would undertake an independent audit of the delivery of NHS Greater Glasgow’s Acute Hospital Modernisation Strategy. I understand that, as part of the annual audit process, PWC have been continuously involved in monitoring, auditing and reporting upon key aspects of the delivery of the strategy. I can confirm that the Scottish Ambulance Service has more paramedics than technicians and now has the staffing mix to be able to deploy a paramedic-led response to all calls that require such a response. In Glasgow specifically, the number of paramedics has risen from 65 in 2002 to 139 at the end of March 2005.

Question reference: S2W-23436

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 3 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive for which infectious diseases diagnostic tests are not carried out in Scotland; how many samples were sent out of the country in each of the last five years in respect of each such disease, and what the cost of sampling each type of disease was in each of the last five years.

The table gives an outline of tests supplied to Scotland by the Health Protection Agency in England in the last three years. That is as far back as the information is available. For ease of comparison some organism tests have been grouped together e.g. Parvovirus because the type of testing has changed over the course of the three years reflecting changes in laboratory techniques. The vast majority of these tests are not primary diagnostic methods but confirmatory tests, additional typing tests following primary isolation (usually as part of an enhanced surveillance programme) or further identification requested where the local referring laboratory has had problems with identification. These services are for the most part provided for the whole of the UK because there is insufficient demand to warrant separate services in all four countries.

The primary diagnostic tests not provided in Scotland , included in the list below are, C.Botulinum toxin, Bartonella toxin, S aureus toxin detection (related to food poisoning).

Laboratory		2002-03 No. of Tests	2003-04 No. of Tests	2004-05 No. of Tests
Food safety Microbiology laboratory	Bacillus sp	11	4	41
	C Botulinum toxin	7	12	6
	C Botulinum culture	0	0	4
	Clostridium sp	16	7	28
	Listeria species	0	0	2
	L monocytogenes	17	8	63
	Staph aureus	62	0	0
	Sub total cost	£5,096	£5,783	£ 9,366
Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory	Diphtheria antitoxin	5	7	4
	Bartonella serology	130	59	126
	Tetanus serology	7	12	28
	Legionella pneumophila serology	1	0	0
	Mycoplasma serology/culture	2	0	1
	Haemophilus influenzae typing	46	50	21
	Streptococcal typing / speciation	0	3	50
	Sub total cost	£7,937.75	£6,961	£9,937.74
Enteric, Respiratory and Neurological Virus laboratory	Influenza strain typing	45	46	3
	Poliovirus serology	4	7	6
	SRSV PCR/NLV PCR	168	2	0
	Parvovirus B19	55	70	43
	Polyoma virus	42	125	124
	Measles mumps rubella serology/PCR	18	154	189
	Herpes B virus	94	5	0
	Other virus PCR	0	0	19
	Sub total cost	£13,772	£11,964	£12,348
Laboratory of healthcare associated infection	Species identification	77	65	53
	Coagulase negative identification	9	0	3
	Enterococcal identification	117	104	30
	Staphylococcus phage type	90	119	2
	Group A serodiagnosis	280	395	466
	S aureus serodiagnosis	42	37	36
	Gram negative typing	49	47	0
	Exfoliative toxin testing		2	14
	Molecular typing	11	31	141
	Sub total cost	£20,071	£21,997	£19,747
Antibiotic and resistance Monitoring Reference Laboratory	Antibiotic resistance tests	217	242	143
Antibiotic and resistance Monitoring Reference Laboratory	Sub total cost	£7,595	£8,470	£5,005
Laboratory of enteric pathogens	E Coli serotyping	14	0	0
	Yersinia serodiagnosis	157	99	71
	Sub total cost	£3,420	£2,018	£1,562
Sexually transmitted and Blood Borne Virus Laboratory	Hepatitis	0	0	0
	HSV serology	5	0	5
	Anti HIV testing	0	0	33
	HIV proviral DNA	0	0	1
	HPV DNA/Typing	0	0	4
	Sub total cost	£75	0	£732
Leptospira reference Unit (Hereford PHL)	Leptospira serology	117	76	104
Leptospira reference Unit (Hereford PHL)	Sub total cost	£1,249	£743	£1,297
Total cost per annum		£59,215	£57,936	£59,996
Annual payment from NSD		£41,200	£57,042	£55,001

Question reference: S2W-23334

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-16922 by Mr Andy Kerr on 7 June 2005, what progress is being made with the catheter-associated urinary tract infection surveillance programme and when the first report from this programme will be published.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS)published a report from the Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI)surveillance programme in June 2005. This is available on the HPS website:http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/scieh/infectious/hai/SSHAIP/pdf/CAUTI%20Annual%20Report%20June%2005.pdf.

participation in the CAUTI surveillanceprogramme is voluntary and not all NHS boards have participated. Therefore, thereport does not provide full data on CAUTIs in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive HealthDepartment has commissioned HPS to conduct a national survey on the prevalence andburden of healthcare associated infections (HAIs). As part of this, data on healthcare-associated UTIs will be collected across Scotland. The prevalence surveyis due to report in 2007.

A best practice statement onurinary catheterisation and catheter care, developed by the HAI Task Force, waspublished by Quality Improvement Scotland in June 2004.