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-12576

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it will allocate the £20 million funding for alcohol and drug partnership funding, which was announced in the Programme for Government.

Question reference: S5W-12590

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many “did not attend” appointments were recorded by each NHS board in 2016-17.

The information requested is provided in the following table.

NHSScotland: Total number of new referrals, did not attends and the percentage of did not attends in Financial year 2016-17 by each NHS Board.

NHS Board	Total Number of New Referrals	Did Not Attend (DNA)	DNA Rate (%)
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	14,346	690	4.8%
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	114,679	10,859	9.5%
NHS Borders	35,341	1,673	4.7%
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	42,365	2,181	5.1%
NHS Fife	114,061	11,142	9.8%
NHS Forth Valley	80,507	6,503	8.1%
NHS Grampian	126,501	7,949	6.3%
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	436,080	51,490	11.8%
NHS Highland	78,499	4,858	6.2%
NHS Lanarkshire	141,106	13,509	9.6%
NHS Lothian	264,692	27,059	10.2%
NHS Orkney	4,348	259	6.0%
NHS Shetland	5,183	355	6.8%
NHS Tayside	151,854	13,439	8.8%
NHS Western Isles	8,512	713	8.4%
Non- NHS Provider	5,324	187	3.5%
NHS Scotland	1,623,398	152,866	9.4%

Source:ISD Scotland SMR00

Question reference: S5W-12593

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its suicide prevention strategy.

In Autumn and Winter 2017-18, the Scottish Government will engage with stakeholders with a view to developing a new suicide prevention action plan for publication in 2018. The key themes of the existing Suicide Prevention Strategy namely improving responses to distress, improving the NHS response to suicide, talking about suicide, and developing the evidence base remain pertinent to continuing efforts to reduce the suicide rate; we continue to work with stakeholders to implement the commitments under these themes.

Question reference: S5W-12599

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS employees have received the flu vaccination in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board.

The vaccination of NHS staff against seasonal flu is an occupational health responsibility of NHS Boards. NHS Boards provide high level data to Health Protection Scotland on flu vaccine uptake amongst their healthcare workers, and this allows an estimate to be calculated.

Flu uptake rates for healthcare workers by NHS Board are available for the 2011-12 flu season onwards and can be viewed at: http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/re sp/seasonalinfluenzavisualisation.aspx . It is important to highlight that calculating uptake of vaccination by NHS staff is complicated for a number of reasons. NHS Boards use different occupational health systems, there are limitations within the data provided by NHS Boards to Health Protection Scotland and some staff will be vaccinated through the core vaccination programme by their GP due to risk factors.

Question reference: S5W-12687

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish a revised definition of true ultra-orphan medicines.

Question reference: S5W-12741

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5O-01334 by Shona Robison on 4 October 2017, whether it will provide the statistics for 2016-17.

Question reference: S5W-12717

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported comments by the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board that locally-contracted social care providers are experiencing staff turnover rates of up to 50%.

It is the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards working with partners and commissioned services to deliver and to manage all aspects of the resources, including staff, which are required to deliver the services.

Attracting and retaining the right people, and raising the status of social care as a profession, is key to delivering quality care. We have taken action to protect social care services, including investment for paying the Living Wage to adult social care workers.

We are working with COSLA and other key partners to deliver major reforms to adult social care and on a jointly owned workforce plan, both of which will support collaborative work on workforce issues.

Question reference: S5W-12472

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 21 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-11621 by Aileen Campbell on 13 October 2017, whether it will provide details of all consultation processes that (a) have taken and (b) will take place with individual GP practices in each NHS board area as part of the Vaccination Transformation Programme.

Question reference: S5W-12474

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 21 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted risk assessments regarding its plans to transfer responsibility for vaccination programmes from general practice and, if so, whether it will make these public.

The Programme is using Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) methodology which includes requirements around risk. A key role of the Vaccination Transformation Programme governance will be to identify and manage risk, undertake equality impact assessments, and establish quality metrics for monitoring the impact of the new delivery model. Local risk assessments will also be carried out as plans progress.

At the heart of any change must be the core principle of patient safety. That is why our planned approach is of a three year transition with changes to services only taking place when it is safe to do so.

Question reference: S5W-12477

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 21 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether GP practices that wish to bid to provide immunisation programmes in their area will be able to do so under the Vaccination Transformation Programme.