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: S5W-28285

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 6 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many volunteers have registered through the Ready Scotland website in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, also broken down by how many will be deployed to assist (a) the NHS and (b) other public services.

As at the week ending 1 May, there were 77,057 sign-ups to the Ready Scotland website, the breakdown is provided in the following table:-

Date	NHS Health & Social Care	British Red Cross	Volunteer Scotland	Total
17-04-20	23,101	18,695	35,261	77,057

a) Following sign-up through the Ready Scotland website, the NHS Health and Social Care recruitment campaign involves both NHS Education for Scotland officials working with Health Boards, and the Scottish Social Services Council working with social care providers, to match applicants to placements. Offers of employment are being made across all Scottish Health and Social Care Partnerships with nearly 700 applicants ready to be deployed and more than 3,600 NHS returners in the process of completing their pre-employment checks. Please note that these are all paid positions.

b) The new British Red Cross deployment recording process has confirmed that, since 13 April, 112 Community Reserve Volunteers have been deployed across the East, West and North Resilience Partnership areas. Volunteer Scotland do not currently track individual volunteer journeys from sign up through to formal volunteering roles, so those figures are not readily available.

The ‘Scotland Cares’ campaign connects British Red Cross and Volunteer Scotland schemes to local authority and third sector activity in communities, creating a pool of volunteers for local organisations to draw upon and deploy as required. Feedback from Local Authorities, Resilience Partnerships, and Third Sector Interface leads, confirms that local volunteering needs are currently being met. Although many of the volunteers who have signed up will not be needed immediately, they are likely to be critical in efforts to support and rebuild communities over the weeks and months to come. It should be noted that thousands of individuals were already volunteering in their communities before the launch of the ‘Scotland Cares’ campaign.

The response from the public has been incredible and the Scotland Cares recruitment campaign is being paused as we enter the next phase. The campaign will re-open should more volunteers be needed.

Question reference: S5W-28380

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people shielding from the COVID-19 outbreak in each local authority have (a) requested and (b) started receiving prescription deliveries, and by what date it expects this to be available through its text-messaging service.

Question reference: S5W-27937

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in each NHS board area have died in hospital while waiting to have a social care package arranged in each year since 2007.

Information held nationally on delayed discharges can identify the number of people who were delayed in their discharge from hospital awaiting completion of care arrangements for social support in order to live in their own home and whose delay period ended in death. Information is not available prior to July 2016 due to a change in data definitions and reporting requirements. Figures for calendar years 2017 to 2019 are shown in the following table.

Number of people delayed in their discharge from hospital awaiting completion of care arrangements for social support in order to live in their own home whose delay period ended in death; by NHS Board; Calendar years 2017-2019

NHS Board of treatment	2017	2018	2019
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	10	18	36
NHS Borders	*	6	*
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	*	*	*
NHS Fife	6	6	12
NHS Forth Valley	5	*	5
NHS Grampian	10	11	7
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	*	0	8
NHS Highland	11	9	8
NHS Lanarkshire	51	32	32
NHS Lothian	89	80	59
NHS Orkney	0	0	0
NHS Shetland	0	*	0
NHS Tayside	10	5	13
NHS Western Isles	*	*	6
Scotland	203	175	194

Source: ISD Scotland

Ref: IR2020-00387

Question reference: S5W-28268

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its efforts to procure additional ventilators for the NHS in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and when it expects this equipment to be available.

The international standard for an appropriate pandemic response is to double ICU capacity. NHS Scotland has more than trebled its adult ICU capacity, from a base of 173 beds to a surge capacity of 585. These beds will be brought into use as needs dictate, on a daily basis. Given the scale of the current emergency, we have asked Health Boards to go further by preparing to quadruple the base ICU capacity; bringing the total number of adult beds to over 700.

To deliver that increase, we have ordered ventilators from a range of manufacturers and these are beginning to arrive with more deliveries to arrive over the coming weeks. To bridge any gaps between now and the delivery of new ventilators, Health Boards have been working to repurpose operating theatre anaesthetic machines for use as ventilators. That is not a long-term solution, but it is allowing us to rapidly increase our capacity of intensive care beds.

Question reference: S5W-27935

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much hospital waste has been stored at sites across the country in each month since the contract with Healthcare Environmental Services ended, also broken down by how much it has cost each NHS board to pay for additional storage cost at hospitals.

Question reference: S5W-28222

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will ensure that the list of aerosol generating procedures requiring full personal protection equipment (PPE) in healthcare settings that is contained in existing guidance in response to the COVID-19 outbreak is not treated as an exclusive list, so that procedures carried out by respiratory physiotherapists and other allied health professionals are also covered and that all staff are provided with the appropriate protective equipment.

The Scottish Government takes the health and safety of all our staff very seriously. The guidance published by the Department of Health and Social Care, Health Protection Scotland (HPS), Public Health Wales, Public Health Agency Northern Ireland, Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England on 2 April 2020 is the official and fully comprehensive guidance on the matter of the use of PPE in the context of COVID19.

The guidance includes clarification that - professionals can use their judgement to assess their risk based on what task they are undertaking and where it is taking place, this includes aerosol generating procedures.

The guidance can be found at: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/covid-19/#guidelines .

Question reference: S5W-28377

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what each local authority's telephone number is for people shielding from the COVID-19 outbreak to contact them; how many staff each council is employing to deal with these calls, and what information it has regarding waiting times to speak to someone.

Question reference: S5W-28375

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people shielding from the COVID-19 outbreak registered with its text-messaging service (a) before and (b) on or after 10 April 2020; what support the service offers, and for what reason this service is not being made automatically available.

By 24 April 2020, 76,888 people had registered with the SMS shielding service. Of these, 27,000 people registered before 10 April, and 49,888 people registered on or after 10 April.

The SMS shielding service offers information and support to people who have been advised to shield because they are at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19:

People who sign up to the SMS service can use it to request free weekly boxes of basic groceries, if they don’t have another way of getting food and household items.
The SMS service asks people if they would like their details to be passed to the supermarkets, so that they can access priority delivery slots.
The SMS service signposts people to their local authority if they need prescription medications delivered.

All of these services are available to anyone in the shielding group who needs them, including people who do not have access to a mobile phone. The services can all be accessed through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

Many people who are shielding will not require access to these services as they will have existing support networks they can use to access food and medicine.

People who are shielding are encouraged to register for the SMS service so that they can be contacted with further updates as the situation around COVID-19 develops.

Question reference: S5W-28368

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported concerns that the letter sent to people who it advised should be shielded during the COVID-19 outbreak was too lengthy and complex.

The letter issued by the Chief Medical Officer to those who are recommended to shield contains important information advising how people in this group should keep themselves safe, what support is available to them, a range of references to sources of further information or help, and information about key issues which are likely to arise. It is essential that those being asked to shield have this information available to them in order to keep themselves safe.

Advice is also available through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

The information contained in the letter is broadly the same as letters issued by the other Chief Medical Officers across the UK in relation to shielding.

Question reference: S5W-28374

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what types of support and assistance local resilience partnerships offer to people shielding from the COVID-19 outbreak; whether the partnerships provide contact details, and how regularly it communicates with each partnership.

The Local Resilience Partnerships (LRPs) bring together a range of strategic local partners and, working with local community groups, provide support to people who are shielding including organising food deliveries, for example for people who do not have mobile phones, as well as assistance with prescription medication deliveries.

Any contact to LRPs in respect of shielding should be made through the relevant Local Authority. The Scottish Government and Local Authorities communicate on shielding on a daily basis.