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-15365

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the figures published by Information Services Division (ISD), which records a rise in the 90th percentile waiting time for outpatient, inpatient and day case appointments.

Question reference: S5W-15363

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the figures published by Information Services Division (ISD), which record that more than half of the patients for whom the 12-week waiting time target for inpatient and day case appointment is not met subsequently wait for over 18 weeks.

We are taking significant action to reduce waits for all patients in Scotland. I recognise that some patients are experiencing long waits, which is why the Scottish Government announced last year that £50 million was being made available to reduce hospital waiting times. It is intended to extend this funding in the current year. I expect to see improvement in waiting times for all parts of the patient journey in the coming months.

I also launched in November the new Access Collaborative Programme which is a different way to bring patients, clinicians, and other NHS staff together to look at ways patients can receive timely accessible care. The programme will reduce planned waiting times by improving communications between staff working in the community and in hospitals to identify the right clinician and treatment, and streamline patient care to minimise or eliminate unnecessary processes.

Question reference: S5W-15531

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many pharmacists have been working in the NHS in each year since 1999, also broken down by NHS board.

The number of pharmacists employed by NHSScotland is published annually from 1999 by Board.

Data from 2007 to the most recent data, published on 5 December 2017, can be found at https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-03-06/Non-Medical_Trend_D2017.xls .

Data from 1999 to 2007 can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Historic-Data/WFF01_HB_REG.xls .

Further notes:

Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/

Question reference: S5W-15535

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the annual budget for each integration joint board has been since they commenced operating.

Question reference: S5W-15515

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS criminal negligence cases have been brought in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. Where a Board has been prosecuted and required to pay a fine as a criminal sanction the payment would be made directly by the Board and would not be recoverable from the Scottish Government under the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS). Where a claim for compensation is made following any prosecution the information held under CNORIS would not distinguish as to whether the negligence has been criminal or not.

Question reference: S5W-15536

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what any budget deficit has been for each integration joint board in each year since they commenced operating.

Question reference: S5W-15618

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 6 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-15078 by Maureen Watt on 14 March 2018, for what reason it refers to "significant safeguards" in relation to forced treatment rather than the "effective safeguards" that are referred to in Article 12.4 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 provides a range of safeguards which are both significant and effective, where those words are interpreted as having their ordinary meaning, in protecting the rights of people who receive mental health care and treatment.

The 2003 Act is based on rights and principles and makes provision to support patients in expressing their will and preferences. An important principle of Scottish mental health law is that any function should be carried out for the maximum benefit of the patient, with the minimum necessary restriction on the freedom of the patient and having regard to the views of the patient and of any carer. Under the 2003 Act, any service user has the right to support from an independent advocate, the right to appoint a named person to represent their interests and the right to make an advance statement setting out the treatment they would and would not like to receive when unwell.

The Mental Health (Scotland) Act 2015 strengthened support for decision making. During the passage of the 2015 Act, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was influential in making the decision to strengthen the provisions in the existing 2003 Act.

Question reference: S5W-15519

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 6 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of eating disorders have been recorded in each year since 1999, also broken down by NHS board.

The number of cases of eating disorders is shown in the following table for the calendar years 1999 to 2016, broken down by NHS board of treatment. Please note that the complete figures for 2017 and 2018 have not yet been published.

Number of cases with eating disorder diagnoses ¹by health board of treatment, 1999 - 2016.

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Ayrshire & Arran	30	21	20	28	42	24	23	30	35	35	29	50	44	31	52	37	25	49
Borders	*	6	11	7	8	5	5	8	11	8	7	16	15	22	21	16	13	35
Dumfries & Galloway	17	24	13	18	22	23	8	*	13	15	19	16	24	19	17	84	147	66
Fife	20	45	23	23	18	14	11	17	34	23	32	16	27	25	36	37	35	36
Forth Valley	24	25	22	14	12	21	13	12	9	14	13	16	21	20	23	19	5	13
Grampian	58	33	28	30	55	58	61	47	86	46	87	80	89	99	104	118	105	83
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	101	102	109	100	125	85	105	127	122	140	127	119	119	159	146	205	213	223
Highland	15	30	22	29	24	41	38	28	22	39	46	23	77	64	61	83	99	73
Island Boards ²	5	7	*	*	5	*	5	*	*	*	7	9	*	5	12	8	*	9
Lanarkshire	21	23	23	22	29	24	78	57	38	21	22	29	53	48	38	43	43	75
Lothian	60	84	88	71	83	122	111	114	126	131	124	131	104	149	171	187	194	160
Other ³	-	-	-	-	-	-	*	13	17	9	5	11	15	7	8	23	50	54
Tayside	32	19	20	34	28	30	19	23	36	27	37	46	42	52	48	39	50	58

Source: SMR01, SMR04

Notes
* - Denotes values which have been suppressed to protect patient confidentiality. 1 - An eating disorder diagnosis is based on current classifications in Chapter V of the ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. 2 - Due to small numbers, the Orkney, Shetland, and Western Isles health boards have been grouped under Island Boards to protect patient confidentiality. 3 - Due to small numbers, the National Facility, Non-NHS Provider/Location, and State Hospital health boards have been grouped under Other to protect patient confidentiality.

Question reference: S5W-15602

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-05965 by John Swinney on 5 January 2017 regarding how many and what percentage of (a) pupils with additional support needs and (b) hours of support provision there have been between 2011 and 2016, whether it will provide the information for 2017.

Education authorities and other agencies have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. Information on how many and the percentage of pupils with additional support needs in each local authority for 2017 is provided in the following table.

	Pupils with an ASN	Percentage of pupils with an ASN
Aberdeen City	6,925	30.5
Aberdeenshire	14,325	40.2
Angus	2,050	13.6
Argyll & Bute	2,347	22.9
Clackmannanshire	1,936	29.2
Dumfries & Galloway	5,996	32.0
Dundee City	3,690	20.3
East Ayrshire	4,159	26.2
East Dunbartonshire	3,370	20.1
East Lothian	3,246	22.8
East Renfrewshire	3,639	21.3
Edinburgh City	12,812	25.8
Na h-Eileanan Siar	1,047	31.2
Falkirk	5,479	25.1
Fife	10,954	22.2
Glasgow City	21,088	31.1
Highland	11,994	38.9
Inverclyde	2,646	26.8
Midlothian	3,216	25.4
Moray	3,951	33.2
North Ayrshire	4,976	27.2
North Lanarkshire	8,144	16.7
Orkney Islands	840	30.8
Perth & Kinross	6,082	33.9
Renfrewshire	4,108	17.4
Scottish Borders	4,390	30.0
Shetland Islands	945	29.2
South Ayrshire	3,130	22.3
South Lanarkshire	10,534	23.9
Stirling	3,367	27.0
West Dunbartonshire	4,621	36.7
West Lothian	7,170	26.6

All local authorities	183,177	26.6

Grant aided	314	26.5

Scotland	183,491	26.6

The information on hours of support provision is not held centrally.

Question reference: S5W-14946

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many clinics a cleft surgeon attended as part of the multidisciplinary cleft team in NHS (a) Highland and (b) Fife in 2017, and how many in both plan to attend as part of the multidisciplinary cleft team in 2018.

Local surgeon led multidisciplinary outreach clinics are supported by the national cleft surgery service to ensure that the patient is seen by all the necessary clinical staff at one visit and not required to have multiple visits.

As the shortage in surgeon capacity remains these clinics are not currently operating at level they would be under a full capacity single surgical service. I

In order to ensure that all children with cleft lip and palate have been provided with the time appropriate surgery they require, multidisciplinary outreach clinics were not held in Highland and Fife in 2017. Instead, patients residing in Highland have been seen in clinics in either Grampian or Tayside, and those residents in Fife have been seen in Lothian or Tayside. These clinics are held fortnightly in Lothian and monthly in Grampian.

Arrangements for multi-disciplinary outreach clinics for the rest of the year will be confirmed once all consultant surgeon posts have been filled and the National Cleft Surgical Service is fully operational. NHS GG&C will commence recruitment for a third consultant surgeon shortly.

Locally delivered cleft services including orthodontics and speech and language therapy, remain the responsibility of local NHS Boards.