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: S6W-13040

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-12646

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what preparations it is taking to ensure that patients and workers are not negatively affected by the placement of NHS Forth Valley into Stage 4 of NHS Scotland’s National Performance Framework for Governance, Leadership and Culture.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to ensuring that the NHS in Scotland delivers high quality, safe, effective and person-centred care to all patients, every time they access health services. The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) continues to be implemented in every NHS Board, including NHS Forth Valley. It is designed to improve the safety of care. It is vital for patients to have confidence that when they access any part of the healthcare system, they will receive the best available treatment without fear of harm.

The Stage 4 escalation is not a reflection of the staff working tirelessly to provide care for the population of Forth Valley. The wellbeing and support for staff is paramount. This escalation decision has been made to allow the leadership team to take forward the transformational change required to improve the culture and leadership, but with the appropriate additional support through the Assurance Board, to ensure effective and efficient change which they have not been able to implement to date. NHS Forth Valley are responsible for delivering improvement against an agreed Plan, and support will be provided to assist NHS Forth Valley in delivery.

If staff do wish to raise concerns during this time then they should be supported to do so and they should be protected throughout the process and not suffer any harm as a result of speaking up. Boards are expected to investigate concerns fairly and appropriately.

Question reference: S6W-12416

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has any plans to introduce training places funded through the Student Awards Agency Scotland for career-changers who wish to retrain as allied health professionals.

A national oversight group responsible for a review of AHP Education and Workforce Review has recently concluded its work. The collaborative group involving a wide range of AHP stakeholders including professional bodies, HEIs and NHS Boards have produced a number of recommendations. Workforce and recruitment and education delivery models have been considered and, although I will not pre-empt the recommendations of that group, I look forward to receiving the suite of recommendations the group has put forward regarding the future of training and development of AHP staff.

Question reference: S6W-12615

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of NHS staff have been agency staff in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-12504

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to ensure that the adjustable car ramp on the Uig, Lochmaddy and Tarbert ferry services returns on all sailings in the spring and summer in 2023.

Question reference: S6W-12446

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £31.224 million allocated to corporate support under health and social care expenditure in its 2022-23 budget has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

The majority of this budget relates to Corporate Running Costs (CRC) which supports staffing and other costs of central functions, with this allocated out across all portfolios, as set out in annual budgets. The remainder of the spend is fully allocated in support of staffing costs within two Health and Social Care Directorates – Health Finance, Corporate Governance and Value and Directorate of Chief Operating Officer. Final confirmation of spend will be included as part of the Scottish Government provisional outturn.

Question reference: S6W-12645

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide a timeline for NHS Forth Valley exiting Stage 4 of NHS Scotland’s National Performance Framework for Governance, Leadership and Culture.

Escalation addresses complex issues and an element of judgement will always be required. The timeline will be driven by the actions within NHS Forth Valley’s Improvement Plan and their associated timelines. My expectation was for the Improvement Plan to be developed and presented to the Assurance Board for scrutiny at its first meeting, with a focus on completing immediate actions by the end of the year.

The overall aim of escalation and the related package of scrutiny and intervention put in place is to support any NHS Board, including NHS Forth Valley, to deliver the required improvement and address the underlying issues effectively and sustainably so that they can be safely de-escalated as swiftly as possible.

The Assurance Board, which has been established to bring direct SG oversight of NHS Forth Valley’s escalation, will provide advice to the Director General about the future escalation status of NHS Forth Valley, including criteria for de-escalation.

Question reference: S6W-12647

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to ensure that the placement of NHS Forth Valley into Stage 4 of NHS Scotland’s National Performance Framework for Governance, Leadership and Culture does not negatively affect the performance of the NHS board over the winter period.

NHS Forth Valley has been unable to demonstrate the necessary governance, leadership and culture required to drive sustainable improvements in poor performance.

The Scottish Government has established an Assurance Board, chaired by Christine McLaughlin, co-Director of Population Health. The Assurance Board is supporting NHS Forth Valley in determining what steps are necessary to ensure the delivery of high quality governance, leadership and culture in, and in doing so is intended to support improvements in performance in out of hours, unscheduled care, mental health, and integration.

The ongoing work to address the underlying issues impacting poor performance is even more crucial as NHS Forth Valley faces one of the toughest winter periods ever experienced.

Question reference: S6W-12527

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS patients have been treated in private hospitals in each of the past five years, broken down by NHS board.

The total number of NHS patients that have been treated in private (independent) hospitals in each of the last five financial years and reported to PHS is presented in the following table.

Number of NHS patients treated in Private (independent) hospitals 1 by NHS board of residence; 2017-18 – 2021-22

	Inpatients or Daycases (SMR01)					Outpatients (SMR00) 2
Health Board of Residence	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
Ayrshire and Arran	247	44	145	499	705	-	-	-	-	434
Borders	59	55	62	52	86	68	136	109	93	121
Dumfries and Galloway	5	6	6	19	29	38	29	27	16	34
Fife	63	582	157	502	91	26	7	7	10	7
Forth Valley	429	808	689	558	319	1	220	-	135	1
Grampian	742	510	290	1081	446	774	293	507	381	124
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	818	752	841	643	539	306	393	408	197	203
Highland	171	201	161	16	3	18	23	17	14	12
Lanarkshire	1951	1703	2919	1389	1389	271	151	480	176	208
Lothian	828	374	839	713	361	2348	1916	1672	146	366
Orkney	2	2	4	22	2	-	-	2	-	1
Shetland	2	-	-	13	2	-	1	-	1	1
Tayside	55	155	203	108	54	60	18	77	263	294
Western Isles	42	39	39	36	19	-	1	-	-	1
Not Known	2	2	1	5	2	20	9	10	9	1
Outwith Scotland	2	3	-	1	1	2	1	1	2	-
Grand Total	5418	5236	6356	5657	4048	3932	3198	3317	1443	1808

- denotes zero
1. relates to patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes, etc. The data recording/completeness of Non-NHS Provider data varies from year to year.
2. Outpatient data only include patients that attended their outpatient appointment and were seen.

Question reference: S6W-12439

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £108.729 million allocated to Digital Health Care in its 2022-23 budget, which was announced on 9 December 2021, has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

The original published budget for Digital Health and Care was £112.9 million, not £108.729 million. See https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2022-23/pages/5/ . Since the budget was published in December 2021 there has been a Scottish Government wide Emergency Budget Review and the agreed corporate savings from this exercise have resulted in a budget of £99.6 million being allocated to Digital Health and Care in 2022-23.

This budget provides funding for the delivery of ‘ Care in the Digital Age’ , with individual activities as set out in the accompanying Delivery Plan . Funds that are allocated are based on need, and final confirmation of spend will be included as part of the Scottish Government provisional outturn.