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: S6W-18892

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been allocated from its 2023-24 Budget to the Technology Enabled Care programme to date.

Question reference: S6W-18891

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the budget allocated to the Technology Enabled Care programme was used to fund the Overdose Alert and Response Technologies: State-of-the-art Review by the University of Stirling.

Question reference: S6F-02256

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 June 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6W-18968

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 19 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the Scottish Public Health Observatory update, Estimated numbers of people prescribed opioid substitution therapy in Scotland, published on 30 May 2023, what measures are being taken to address any issues associated with Community Health Index (CHI) capture for opioid substitute therapy, in order to ensure more accurate figures for the number of people prescribed these medications.

Following initial discussions, a small number of NHS boards have approached the Pharmacy Service Improvement Team in Practitioner Services Directorate within Public Health Scotland over the past 2 years to obtain data from the Prescribing Information Store (PIS) of the Corporate Data Warehouse, in conjunction with prescriptions images held, and asked for assistance/analysis to support them to increase their levels of CHI capture for OST prescriptions.

Based on various discussions, analysis and findings, the following conclusions were made on the scenarios and conditions that lead to poor CHI capture:-

EMIS Prescribing System – it was noted that the CHI number prints correctly on GP10(SS) stationery, however, on Nurse prescriptions, GP10N(SS) stationery, the CHI number is printed with spaces, e.g. 0 2 0 2 2 0 x x x x and, therefore, the CHI number is not in the correct format to be captured successfully.
Prescribing locations:-
In primary care, there are a number of GP10(SS) printed prescriptions from GP Practices with no electronic support/barcode and the CHI number may not be captured via ICR as a result of the other scenarios detailed below.
In specialist addiction clinics, there is a wide variation across NHS Boards on how these services have been set up locally and the prescription stationery they use to prescribe, e.g. some specialist clinics operate out of primary care and use GP10(SS)/GP10N(SS) stationery and others use hospital locations and use Hospital Based Addict Prescription pads (HBPA) or printed stationery (HBPA(SS)). It was noted that a significant number of printed HBPA prescriptions also had the CHI number in the incorrect format with spaces and the CHI number was not being captured. However, this has recently been addressed in NHS Ayrshire & Arran.

There are other scenarios that result in poor to no CHI capture when prescriptions are scanned via intelligent character recognition (ICR) for remuneration to community pharmacies and these include:

The quality of printed output, e.g., low toner/ink and the CHI number is not captured.
Misaligned or obscured CHI number - if this is not printed in the correct position of the prescription form or is obscured by handwriting.
The Pharmacy Practice stamp in the CHI area is obscuring part of the CHI number.
Handwritten CHI numbers – there is a very poor ICR capture rate of handwritten CHI numbers.
No CHI number printed or incomplete CHI number, where only a DOB has been provided.

Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland are actively considering options to resolve the issues outlined, which focus on updating current systems to improve the consistent formatting of prescriptions, consequently improving the automated capture of information.

Question reference: S6F-02233

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02203

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 June 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02174

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 June 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02141

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 May 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02111

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 May 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02082

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 May 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.