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-14144

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it has done to develop career development opportunities within the specialist digital, data, design and technology (DDAT) professional workforce within health and social care.

We are in the process of exploring the feasibility of how we can embed the DDaT Framework into all NHS Scotland Health Boards. This is being discussed collaboratively across health and social care in Scotland and with NHS England to share experiences of ongoing developments and avoid potential duplication of effort.

The DDaT Framework will help provide consistency across health and social care organisations in ongoing development and access to learning resources. It will also enable us to explore a common definition of job roles and align to workforce competition across all sectors in recruitment and retention.

Question reference: S6W-14093

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on enabling people to (a) book/rearrange appointments, (b) order prescriptions, (c) update their details and (d) generally conduct all routine "transactions" online.

Question reference: S6W-14117

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, which health and social care organisations it has provided support to in order to have access to the basic resources required to develop as digital organisations.

Question reference: S6W-14149

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on training health and social care staff to ensure that they have the essential digital skills that they need to do their job, broken down by NHS board.

The development and maintaining of digital skills across the workforce is the responsibility of individual employers and academic institutions. We do not hold information centrally on the amount spent by health and social care organisations on development of digital skills. At a national level, we are supporting the provision of materials, resources and courses to support digital skills via the Digital Skills and Leadership Programme. This programme is led by NHS Education for Scotland, and from October 2021 to December 2022 the Scottish Government spent £790,637 on this national programme.

The Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme enables the delivery of Priority 4 of the refreshed Digital Health and Care strategy where ‘Digital skills are seen as core skills for the workforce across the health and care sector’, and associated commitments in the Health and Social Care: national workforce strategy. The associated programme priorities are found within the Care in a Digital Age Delivery Plan 2022-2023.

Question reference: S6W-14142

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what work it has done with senior leaders within health and social care to develop the skills needed to embed digital technology and literacy across their organisations.

We have recently agreed the arrangement for a new post-graduate course in Scotland. The 'Leading Digital Transformation in Health and Care' (MSc) will provide up to 60 funded places aimed at senior and aspiring leaders across the health and social care sector. Year one commences in April 2023.

Work is also underway designing the 'Executive Leadership in a Digital Age' Masterclass programme. This will equip Board-level executives and non-executives with the necessary understanding of digital health, governance and leadership skills to support transforming service delivery.

Question reference: S6W-14090

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it is doing to develop digital services in support of residents in care homes.

Scottish Government is doing a range of things to support residents in care homes. Delivery is ongoing, as set out in My Health, My Care, My Home - healthcare framework for adults living in care homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Key aspirations for enhancing Scotland's care homes' digital capacity to be able to fully embrace the potential for supporting people living in care homes and enabling new care management processes through the use of digital technology is specifically set out in The Connecting People Connecting Services Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-14135

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it last conducted digital maturity exercises across its health and care delivery landscape.

In 2019, Scotland undertook its first digital maturity assessment across health and social care which helped to identify key priorities. A second national digital maturity exercise will be undertaken in 2023 and will provide current picture of digital maturity. This will support us to develop our “What good looks like” model, identify resources required to support organisational development, and conduct further reviews and prioritisation.

One of the key areas identified for improvement through the previous Digital Maturity exercise was to improve access to digital channels for members of the public. Key scale up programmes such as Near Me and Digital for Mental Health have further supported this, whilst other national programmes are now underway such as the Digital Front Door which will build on this further.

Question reference: S6O-01866

Asked by: Bill Kidd, MSP for Glasgow Anniesland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will support the continuation of the Scottish Crisis Fund project, in order to support people with no recourse to public funds as its anti-destitution strategy moves into year two.

Since April 2022, the Scottish Government has provided up to £642,500 to support the Scottish Crisis Fund project, being delivered by the British Red Cross, through the Ending Destitution Together strategy.

This project provides crisis cash grants to people facing destitution who are experiencing barriers to accessing support and is inclusive of people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds.

Funding currently runs to 31 March 2023. The Scottish Government is currently working with the British Red Cross on future funding and delivery of the project in 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all it can within devolved powers to protect communities and support people.

Question reference: S6W-14219

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government about updating the definitions of (a) alcohol-free and (b) low alcohol products in (i) Scotland and (ii) the UK as a whole.

Question reference: S6O-01867

Asked by: Kaukab Stewart, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting Glasgow to improve its sustainable transport infrastructure.

The Scottish Government is currently supporting a range of sustainable transport projects and programmes across Glasgow and wider region.

This includes investment and development work on active travel infrastructure and behaviour change; bus priority measures to increase the attractiveness of using the bus over the private car; on the region’s rail network; on the subway and on developing the programme and business case for the multi-billion pound proposed Clyde Metro.