Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-39080

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the initiative to provide more specialist clinical care in the community, as detailed in the Health and Social Care Renewal Framework, whether increased specialist support in local settings will be available for people with inflammatory bowel disease in order to allow those with Crohn’s disease or colitis to manage their condition closer to home.

Question reference: S6W-39079

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential of embedding specialist support practitioners, such as specialist nurses, dieticians, and psychologists, within local settings, in order to (a) improve (i) access to holistic care and (ii) the management of long-term conditions, such as Crohn’s disease and colitis, closer to home and (b) prevent avoidable hospital admissions.

Question reference: S6W-38145

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what patient-facing features will be available to people piloting the national Digital Front Door app within NHS Lanarkshire later in 2025.

The initial users in NHS Lanarkshire will be patients accessing dermatology outpatient services. They will have the following features:

Secure login using a unique ID through Scot Account.
Receive digital letters from the dermatology team
View dermatology appointments
Access personal health information, including demographics, medications and allergies.
Use a national service finder to locate health and care services.

These details have been published in our Operational Improvement Plan which you can access here; https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-scotland-operational-improvement-plan/pages/5/.

To ensure good practice in our approach, we intend for the initial version to be tested thoroughly in Lanarkshire before we seek to spread and scale it across Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-04775

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any economic implications of the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s latest forecasts and the potential impact of rising public health costs on businesses across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-37823

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether legislation will be required to deliver an integrated social care and health record, as referenced in its Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2024-25.

The Scottish Government are committed to delivering a digital health and care record and can confirm that legislation is not required to create such a record. However, Part 2 of the Care Reform (Scotland) Bill, if passed, will create the enabling conditions for success of a digital health and care record by improving information sharing and usage between individuals and organisations within the health and social care system. The Scottish Government is listening to the views of MSPs presented at Stage 2 of the parliamentary process and considering what amendments may be useful in delivering a record that improves outcomes for people in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-37646

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether investment for Crohn’s disease and colitis is included as a "similar condition" in the £4.5 million of funding announced in the Programme for Government 2025-26 for new specialist support for long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue and other similar conditions.

Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are examples of post-acute infection syndromes. Work is ongoing to determine how the additional £4.5 million announced in the 2025-26 budget to deliver new specialist support will be allocated to NHS boards. It is expected that NHS boards will develop support based on their understanding of local population need and synergies with existing local service provision.

Question reference: S6W-37645

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the announcement within the Programme for Government 2025-26 of £4.5 million for new specialist support for long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue and other similar conditions, what it identifies as "similar conditions".

Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are examples of post-acute infection syndromes. Work is ongoing to determine how the additional £4.5 million announced in the 2025-26 budget to deliver new specialist support will be allocated to NHS boards. It is expected that NHS boards will develop support based on their understanding of local population need and synergies with existing local service provision.

Question reference: S6W-37566

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the second supplementary to question S6O-04619 by Neil Gray on 7 May 2025, whether it will provide an update on the delivery of an electronic, single shared patient record system.

The provision of patient record systems remains the operational responsibility of Health Boards, but at a national level I can confirm it is our intention to launch the first version of a personalised digital health and social care service from December 2025. This was set out in the answer to question S6W-30875 on 11 November 2024.

The Scottish Government emphasises that this provides citizens with access to their own health and care data and accordingly will address the desire across Scotland for individuals to have access to a single shared patient record.

It is important to recognise that implementation of the service for our workforce, will build on our current Clinical Portal system, which currently enables many Health Boards across Scotland to have access to health information as part of the integrated record. This commitment is also set out in our recently published Programme for Government 2025-26 -https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/advice-and-guidance/2025/05/programme-government-2025-26/documents/programme-government-2025-26/programme-government-2025-26/govscot%3Adocument/programme-government-2025-26.pdf.

We highly recognise the importance of ensuring staff have access to the correct patient information where required, and we continue to improve this through development of our National Digital Platform, which enables the storage and integration of data for digital services that are public facing. We have also applied our learning collated from the use of the Clinical Portals, and we will continue to collate and apply intelligence gathered to our ongoing development of Integrated Records.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-37563

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve data collection and reporting on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in schools, in collaboration with local authorities.

Question reference: S6W-37564

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it offers to local authorities and schools to help ensure that all pupils receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training during their time in education.

The Scottish Government is a key partner in the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership, which is working to ensure that all school aged children in Scotland will be given the opportunity to be equipped with CPR skills.

This has included delivery of Restart a Heart Day Live last year. This was a live stream CPR training event targeted at school-age children. The Scottish Government has committed to working with Save a Life for Scotland to deliver Restart a Heart Day Live again in 2025.

The Save a Life for Scotland partnership have a range of resources available on their website for both adults and children to safely learn how to perform CPR.

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