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: S6O-02300

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many mothers from Moray it anticipates will give birth at Raigmore each year until the new service at Dr Gray's is up and running, in light of its decision in December 2022 not to continue with model 4.

Question reference: S6W-17721

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will review the sensitivity of the bowel cancer testing programme to enable an increase in sensitivity from a level of 80 to 20.

The Scottish Government, along with the other UK nations, takes advice on whether or not to introduce any new screening programmes from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group.

Any changes to the sensitivity threshold the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme (SBSP) currently uses would come from a review of the evidence-base and subsequent recommendations from the UK NSC. These recommendations would also be considered by the Scottish Screening Committee.

Question reference: S6W-17764

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 18 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the 2018 GP contract.

The Scottish Government continues to implement the 2018 GP Contract.

Five years on from the joint agreement between Scottish Government and the British Medical Association (BMA) on the 2018 GP contract, Health and Social Care Partnerships have made significant progress in the implementation of Primary Care Improvement Plans (PCIPs).

As of March 2022, 3,220 WTE multi-disciplinary team (MDT) members had been recruited to work in and with GP practices and the community, reducing practice workload and ensuring more patients see the right healthcare professional at the right time. An update on progress on MDT recruitment throughout 2022-23 will be published on 28 June 2023.

Question reference: S6O-02284

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government where the new acute general teaching hospitals will be built over the next 10 years.

Question reference: S6W-17763

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 17 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many GP practices are currently operating with a single GP.

Question reference: S6W-16848

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the National Treatment Centre – Highland, whether a booking system is operational for all NHS boards to refer their (a) orthopaedic and (b) ophthalmic patients, and which NHS board is ultimately responsible for overseeing any such booking system; what mechanisms are currently in place for prioritising (i) orthopaedic and (ii) ophthalmic patients on the waiting list, and whether any priority system will be used to order NHS board applications to the (A) orthopaedic and (B) ophthalmic waiting lists, and what the (1) date of the first booking and (2) total number of patients on the waiting list is, broken down by NHS board.

There are currently no plans for a dedicated booking system for the referral of patients to the network of National Treatment Centres (NTCs).

Through on-going engagement with NHS Boards, the Scottish Government’s Planned Care Team actively monitor speciality-by-speciality throughput across NHS Scotland, including patients being seen at the NTCs. NTCs are key in the NHS Scotland approach to tackling the backlog of planned care, and activity going through the centres will be focussed initially to support treatment of the longest waiting patients.

NTC-Highland has been commissioned to support Orthopaedic activity for NHS Grampian, which will provide capacity to treat 434 patients from NHS Grampian who are waiting for Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery.

In line with the national clinical pathway approved for NTCs, NHS Grampian is responsible for providing a list of appropriate patients who have been pre-operatively assessed and NTC-Highland will oversee the booking of patients into both consenting clinics and for surgery. NHS Grampian’s Orthopaedic patients will be referred to NTC-Highland in batches of approximately 50 patients per month. The first batch was referred at the beginning of April for operating from the week commencing 15 May.

Numbers of patients waiting for Orthopaedic and Ophthalmic treatment can be found online on Public Health Scotland's website.

NTC–Highland treated its first patient on 17th April 2023.

Question reference: S6O-02223

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, prior to the signing by the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity of the Memorandum of Understanding between NatureScot and financial partners, how much financing it had identified would be required to meet its net zero targets for tree planting.

Question reference: S6W-16841

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has provided any support to the Forces Families Jobs website.

Question reference: S6W-16838

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its latest assessment is of the total number of veterans in Scotland.

The most recent estimate of the number of veterans of the UK Armed Forces resident in Scotland is 220,000, which was taken from the annual population survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics in 2017. Scotland's Census 2022 included for the first time a question on previous service in the UK Armed Forces. Census data will help to support a better understanding of the veterans community in Scotland, including numbers.

Question reference: S6W-16840

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Skills Development Scotland’s collaboration with the Ministry of Defence to support career transitions for veterans.

Following agreement of a memorandum of understanding between Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in March 2022, an action plan was agreed between SDS, MoD and the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) who deliver support to leavers of the armed forces as they transition to civilian life.

Actions underway include:-

SDS sharing labour market intelligence and other data to CTP for use by their career consultants;
the development of a joint referral process for those early service leavers who may be entitled to, or will benefit from SDS careers services;
jointly delivered training sessions on each organisation’s service offer to both CTP and SDS advisers;
SDS attendance at a CTP jobs event in Kinloss at the end of 2022 and at Murrayfield on 20 April 2023
work to ensure Modern, Graduate and Foundation Apprenticeships are promoted to early service leavers, veterans and their families.

Progress of the plan is being monitored at a joint senior level across SDS, MoD and CTP.

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