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-02511

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many Patient Hygiene Inspectors there are in each hospital.

Question reference: S5W-02510

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many cleaners in the NHS are outsourced from private companies.

Question reference: S5W-02512

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce NHS bureaucracy.

The Scottish Government expects every public body to deliver efficiency savings of at least 3 per cent per annum. NHS Health Boards have achieved this level, and delivered efficiency savings in 2015-16 in excess of £290 million. This has been reinvested by the Health Boards in frontline services.

NHS Boards achieve efficiency savings in a wide range of areas, including those set out in NHS Scotland Efficiency and Productivity: Framework for SR10: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2011/02/11144220/12. The Framework requires savings to be made through, amongst other means, reductions in senior management, better workforce productivity, and increased use of shared services.

Question reference: S5W-02519

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many outpatients did not attend NHS appointments in each year since 1999.

Information on the number of new outpatient appointments and the number of Did Not Attends and the rate since 1999 to 2015 is provided in the following table.

It is every patient's responsibility to keep their NHS appointment and it is important that they let the hospital know when they cannot attend. However, we also recognise that the NHS has to be flexible in helping make appointments convenient to patients.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting health boards implement policies to reduce missed appointments such as providing reminder services through text, emails and social media. This will allow reminder services to be tailored for patients who are most likely not to attend.

Year	New Appointments	Did Not Attend	Did Not Attend Rate
1999	1,433,613	162,399	11.3%
2000	1,420,711	157,838	11.1%
2001	1,411,606	167,230	11.8%
2002	1,429,735	172,515	12.1%
2003	1,423,707	169,906	11.9%
2004	1,435,668	161,720	11.3%
2005	1,467,832	156,136	10.6%
2006	1,431,731	146,035	10.2%
2007	1,526,634	158,329	10.4%
2008	1,622,868	168,602	10.4%
2009	1,697,256	180,638	10.6%
2010	1,679,513	180,456	10.7%
2011	1,696,416	179,410	10.6%
2012	1,724,291	174,750	10.1%
2013	1,727,119	173,914	10.1%
2014	1,739,617	173,846	10.0%
2015	1,763,853	176,917	10.0%

Source: SMR00 ISD Scotland

Question reference: S5W-02508

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many school nurses there have been in each year since 1999.

Due to a number of changes in the recording and collection of school nursing data, figures published by ISD Scotland are not directly comparable between 1999 and 2016 and have been split accordingly:-

Information on school nurses from 1999 can be found on the workforce statistics web site at: http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Historic-Data/WFE01_HB_REG.xls

Further information on school nurses from 2007 onwards can be found on the statistics web site at: http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2012-11-27/Nursing_and_Midwifery_SIP_S2012.xls?52391154

Information on school nurses from 2013 onwards can be found on the statistics web site at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-09-06/Non-Medical_Trend_J2016.xls.

Question reference: S5W-02516

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent on incinerating hospital clinical waste in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S5W-02522

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many MS nurses there are in each NHS board area.

NHS Board	Number of MS specialists (WTE)
NHS Scotland	15.0
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	1.0
NHS Borders	0.6
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	-
NHS Fife	1.4
NHS Forth Valley	1.0
NHS Grampian	1.9
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	3.0
NHS Highland	2.0
NHS Lanarkshire	-
NHS Lothian	2.0
NHS Orkney	0.6
NHS Shetland	0.5
NHS Tayside	-
NHS Western Isles	1.0

Scottish Workforce Information Standard System

Question reference: S5W-02513

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many places on integrated health boards are still to be appointed.

Appointments to Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) were confirmed following their legal constitution in line with the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Integration Joint Board) (Scotland) Order 2014, which sets out minimum membership requirements of IJBs. As with any board of governance, an interim vacancy may arise from time to time due to a member stepping down or an appointment term coming to an end.

Question reference: S5W-02515

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many terminally-ill people in each year since 1999 who expressed a preference to die at home, died in a hospital setting.

Question reference: S5W-02509

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 22 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it provides to support young carers, and how this compares with 2007.

Most funding provided by the Scottish Government is to support both adult and young carers and is not separated out. Between 2008 and 2017 we invested nearly £39 million in Health Boards' Carer Information Strategies for support to adult and young carers.

Since 2012 we have also invested over £300,000 in workforce development which includes programmes working with young carers.

For young carer specific support, the Scottish Government has provided over £2 million for the annual Young Carers Festival, and for other initiatives. We also fund the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance to support the development of services for young carers.

The total amount for supporting carers in 2007 is likely to be less than in any year from 2008, as the existing initiatives were not in place then.