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-24673

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent announcement by ScotRail that Glasgow Queen Street, Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William train stations will not remove charges for access to toilets and plan to increase charges from 30p to 50p.

Question reference: S5W-24674

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the announcement by ScotRail that toilet charges will continue in four stations in Scotland, what its response is to research by Age Scotland that states that older people may not make journeys that do not have a convenient toilet stop.

Question reference: S5W-24765

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many times in the last 12 months it has met the UK Government to discuss the supply of hormone replacement therapy.

Question reference: S5W-24541

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, what its response is to reports of high influenza activity early in the season in Australia and across the Southern Hemisphere; what impact this could have on influenza activity in Scotland, and what action it will take in response to this.

We are closely monitoring the current flu season in Australia and will use any transferrable evidence and learning from Australia to strengthen approaches for Scotland.

While evaluating the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season is useful for our own planning it does not necessarily mean that the Northern Hemisphere will experience the same flu season next winter.

The best way for people to defend themselves from the flu is to be vaccinated. A new flu campaign for the 2019-20 Scottish season will launch in Autumn and work is underway to ensure effective planning is in place.

Question reference: S5W-24616

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to ensure that the general standards in neurological health services are implemented universally across NHS.

Organisations delivering services are responsible for implementing the standards at a local level, and local quality frameworks and procedures will assist them in monitoring progress.

As part of the draft National Action Plan, we have included a commitment to promote and support the implementation of the Healthcare Improvement Scotland General Standards for Neurological Care and Support 2018.

In developing the National Action Plan (on Neurological Conditions) we are actively considering national governance arrangements, which will include intelligence gathered on implementation of the HIS standards.

Question reference: S5W-24617

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to monitor the implementation of the general standards in neurological health services across NHS boards.

Question reference: S5W-24573

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the gender breakdown is for the 921 graduate apprenticeships starts in the recently published 2018-19 Skills Development Scotland figures.

The gender breakdown of graduate apprenticeship starts for 2017-18 and 2018-19 can be found below:

Year	Total Starts	Male Starts	Female Starts	Male %	Female %
2017-18	278	227	49	82.8	17.8
2018-19	921	605	316	65.7	34.3

Graduate Apprenticeship numbers are still small and any conclusions drawn from the report need to be made with caution. However, Graduate Apprenticeship starts tripled to reach a total of 921 starts in 2018/19, which was accompanied by increased female representation from 17.8% of the starts in 2017-18 to 34.3% in 2018-19.

Given historic underrepresentation for females in STEM, the growth in representation is encouraging, as 10 out the 12 Graduate Apprenticeship frameworks offered in 2018-19 were in STEM subjects. We recognise that there is still work to be done in getting more women into Apprenticeship roles and Skills Development Scotland is working in partnership with a range of organisations to address gender imbalance in Apprenticeships.

Question reference: S5W-24572

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish a detailed report on graduate apprenticeships.

Question reference: S5W-24540

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the uptake for the influenza vaccine reportedly decreasing since 2013-14, how it plans to increase the uptake for (a) people aged 65 and over and (b) other at-risk groups during the 2018-19 vaccination programme.

Through research, Health Scotland have identified perceived barriers to vaccination for those ‘vaccine hesitators’ in key priority groups. The public awareness campaign for this coming season (2019-20) aims to challenge those misconceptions and offer reassurance with the aim of supporting increased uptake.

The annual Chief Medical Officer letter will also emphasise that the benefits of flu vaccination should be communicated and vaccination made as easily accessible as possible for eligible groups. The letter will also urge Health Boards and GPs to ensure resources are aligned to help support good uptake rates.

Question reference: S5W-24615

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 20 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many peripheral nerve experts there have been in each of the last 10 years, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested on how many peripheral nerve experts there have been in each of the last 10 years, broken down by NHS board is not centrally available.

Staff in other professions (such as neurology consultants, physiotherapists and general physicians) will contribute towards peripheral nerve expert care.

The number of Neurology Consultants working in NHSScotland can be found in the Medical and Dental dashboard on the ISD website available here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-06-04/Medical-and-Dental.asp

The number of physiotherapists working in NHSScotland can be found in the Allied Health Professions dashboard on the ISD website available here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-06-04/AHP.asp

A general physician is also a general practitioner. Information on the general practice workforce including population and list sizes can be found on the ISD website available here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Workforce-and-Practice-Populations/

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/ .