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-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-16843

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 when it next plans to meet with the Scottish Veterans Commissioner.

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-16839

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 is cooperating with the UK Government’s review into welfare provision for veterans.

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.

Question reference: S6W-16849

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to patients who live outside the NHS Highland area and are being treated at the National Treatment Centre – Highland, what support for (a) travel costs will any such patients be entitled to, and whether any such support will extend to the patient’s family, and (b) accommodation costs will any such patients’ family members be entitled to in order to ensure that they can accompany those undergoing treatment at the facility, and, in each instance, who will cover any such costs.

Patients travelling outwith their local Health Board area for treatment at a National Treatment Centre (NTC) will be compensated for their travel expenses by their Board of Residence, in line with the process for other cross boundary patients.

Patients referred in the first instance will be expected to make their own way to the NTC. However, to ensure equity of access, where necessary - and by special arrangement between the NHS Board and the NTC - every effort should be made to support transport arrangements for patients who otherwise meet the referral criteria for treatment within an NTC facility. To support equity of access across patient groups, where NTC transport services are not available, alternative transport methods may be used (e.g. Hospital Ambulance Car Service, a volunteer service, ambulance or taxi). On all occasions the cost of transporting patients will be passed back to the purchaser (referring Board) for payment.

Patients should speak to their local health board about help with travel or accommodation costs to attend an appointment at an NTC and should follow the NHS Board travel expense policy requirements guidelines to make an expense claim.

In the specific case of NHS Grampian patients receiving treatment at NTC Highland:

Patient travel costs and the travel cost of a person accompanying them will be reimbursed. This is either at a cost per mile if they choose to drive or full reimbursement of public transport. If required by the patient, support can be provided by NHS Grampian’s Central Waiting Times Team to arrange transport on their behalf.

Accommodation is offered to the patient, and person accompanying the patient under reasonable circumstances, and would be arranged through NHS Grampian’s Central Waiting Times Team. Costs are either reimbursed to the patient or paid for directly by NHS Grampian (as is the case for Golden Jubilee Hospital).

Examples of reasonable circumstances

•if the appointment or admission time is early morning or late afternoon.

•if the patient requires an overnight or multiple nights’ stay at which point accommodation would be arranged for the person accompanying the patient.

•The patient or person accompanying them has medical conditions which would prevent travel to and back from location on same day.

If capacity at NTC Highland were to be allocated to other Boards outwith the local health board area, the responsibility for accommodation and transport would similarly fall upon the patient’s Board of Residence and be subject to that Boards’ procedures for cross-boundary patients.

Question reference: S6W-16837

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 2 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses are signed up to, or have otherwise used, its toolkit aimed at encouraging businesses to proactively recruit and benefit from employing veterans, since its launch in March 2017.

Question reference: S6W-16836

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 April 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 2 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an estimate of how many veterans have used the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership’s qualifications and skills mapping tool since its launch in February 2022.

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) Partnership's military skills discovery tool formally launched in March 2023 after the completion of work to expand the number of military job roles within the tool as the result of feedback and testing with service leavers. As such there are limited statistics on the number of users to date, but SCQF Partnership are working with Skills Development Scotland, who host the tool on their My World of Work website, to develop usage statistics and to use them to drive future development of the tool.