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-18007

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) the food and drink sector, (b) health organisations and (c) other stakeholders regarding price controls in order to protect public health.

The Scottish Government has regular dialogue regarding a whole range of public health issues with stakeholders, including health organisations, the food and drink sector, alcohol industry and retailers. As policies are formulated and developed using evidence-based information, part of the process is to consult relevant stakeholders.

In May 2013, NHS Health Scotland published a report The impact of the Alcohol Act on off-trade alcohol sales in Scotland which provides information on the impact of the quantity discount ban on alcohol, a price control mechanism. This report shows that alcohol sales dropped by 2.6% following the introduction of the ban in October 2011. The report is available at:

http://www.healthscotland.com/documents/21101.aspx.

NHS Health Scotland are also leading the evaluation of the Scottish Government’s alcohol strategy through the Monitoring and Evaluating Scotland’s Alcohol Strategy (MESAS) work programme, and this includes monitoring and evaluating minimum unit pricing.

Question reference: S4W-17963

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent improvements NHS boards have made to the monitoring of information about who is accessing services.

NHS boards are responsible for monitoring information about who is accessing services so they can ensure that local services are meeting the needs of their local communities.

As part of the Scottish Government’s six month mental health implementation review visits we discuss with the NHS boards their progress in improving data, completeness in recording ethnicity on psychiatric inpatient admissions. (SMR04)

Data collected on SMR04 shows that there has been a steady improvement in completeness of ethnicity data from 42%, not provided in 2008-09 to 1% not provided in 2012-13. Whilst the number of not known has varied between 18% in 2008-09 and 22% in 2012-13.

Question reference: S4W-17957

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress in relation to Commitment 6 in the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015.

Question reference: S4W-17971

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its work with NHS Tayside to develop an approach to improve the response to distress.

The Tayside project team presented the progress and outcomes of the work to date at an Improvement panel in early September.

This included updates on the ‘tests of change’ that had been undertaken; the data gathered and analysed during the project and the views and feedback from a range of stakeholders and members of the public.

The next stage includes the continuation of certain tests of change: A report to the Dundee Community Planning Partnership on the learning and outcomes with recommendations on future local actions and sharing the outcomes with other Tayside partnership groups and a report to the Scottish Government on the learning and outcomes.

Question reference: S4W-17966

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent steps it has taken to improve the mental health of vulnerable children.

While the Scottish Government sets the policy direction for the delivery of and access to psychological therapies, it is for health boards to determine the level and nature of the demand in their local areas.

In preparation for meeting the access to psychological therapies HEAT target, many health boards have undertaken work to quantify demand and capacity within services delivering psychological therapies, and have carried out or are planning service redesign to best meet this demand.

Question reference: S4W-17969

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent steps it has taken to improve the mental health outcomes of looked-after children.

In 2009, a letter was sent to all NHS board chief executives informing them that by 2015 all looked after children should be offered a mental health assessment. A short life working group is currently developing recommendations on carrying out health assessments for looked after children and this will include guidance on mental health screening.

In accordance with “Getting it Right for Every Child” principles we continue to encourage high-quality, individually tailored, multi-agency approaches for this vulnerable group. That is why we have made a commitment in the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015 to work with a range of stakeholders to develop the current specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services balanced scorecard to pick up all specialist mental health consultation and referral activity relating to looked after children.

There have been increases in direct therapeutic services for looked after children and in the indirect mental health support available. An example of indirect support is the basic mental health training which has been made available to all those working with or caring for looked after children and young people.

We recently funded a pilot in Rossie Secure Unit to tackle the mental health needs of young people in secure care. The teaching recovery techniques programme provides an effective trauma-specific approach to address young people’s subjective sense of disturbance and enable behavioural change to begin to occur. We have now received a draft report on the programme and are considering its initial findings.

We have also funded the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland to develop and deliver a programme of suicide and self harm training for senior managers in social work, health and education. This 18 month long programme aims to improve the process of developing improved interagency protocols and pathways to ensure that distressed and vulnerable children can have their needs met.

Question reference: S4W-17964

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent progress it has made on lowering psychiatric readmission rates.

Readmissions to psychiatric hospitals was the subject of a HEAT target running from December 2004 to December 2009. The HEAT target was to reduce the number of readmissions (within one year) for those that have had a psychiatric hospital admission of at least seven days by 10 per cent by the end of December 2009.

The target included patients with an initial discharge occurring up to the end of December 2009. As readmissions up to one year after the initial discharge were counted for the target, information on admissions up to the end of December 2010 was required to allow final performance against this target to be assessed. The last data published in this format showed that readmissions had reduced by 27% between December 2004 and March 2010.

Question reference: S4W-17972

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what financial support it has made available in each of the last five years to voluntary organisations that provide talking therapies.

Psychological therapies are delivered and funded mainly through the NHS, and our work to support improving access to psychological therapies is focussed mainly on provision through health boards.

No ring fenced funding has specifically been provided to support voluntary organisations to provide psychological therapies.

However, we provide funding to national third sector mental health organisations, many of whom provide a range of services and support to respond to mental health problems, including in some cases delivery of psychological therapies.

Question reference: S4W-17784

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 8 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the 28-day hospital readmission rate following discharge from a mental health speciality has been in each of the last four years, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S4O-02585

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what progress the Detect Cancer Early Programme has made.