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-02831

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what level of funding it estimates it will commit to its Carbon Neutral Islands project.

Question reference: S6W-02858

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to recruit the 320 additional staff that it has committed to delivering to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce by 2026.

In May 2021, we allocated £16.4 million to support NHS Boards to implement the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Service Specification. In addition, on 14 September, we announced £10.83 million funding to further support the implementation. Through this funding, NHS Boards have started to recruit additional staff to implement the Specification and to build professional capacity to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for the recruitment of NHS staff. It is NHS Boards’ responsibility to recruit workforce. The Scottish Government has provided guidance to NHS Boards, through the National CAMHS Service and Neurodevelopmental Specifications, on the appropriate roles and professionals expected to be employed within Boards.

Question reference: S6W-02830

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it plans to provide to each local authority in relation to its Carbon Neutral Islands project.

Question reference: S6W-02612

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people died from a pulmonary embolism due to deep vein thrombosis (DVT) within 90 days of discharge following (a) orthopaedic and (b) any type of surgery in (i) 2010, (ii) 2015 and (iii) 2020.

The following table presents the information requested.

Table 1 : Number of people that died within 90 days of discharge following an orthopaedic or any type of surgery, with pulmonary embolism and deep-vein thrombosis among the causes of death.

Year	Number of deaths after orthopaedic surgery	Number of deaths after any surgery, including orthopaedic
2010	16	35
2015	9	25
2020	7	16

1. Year based on the date of the hospital admission when the surgery was carried out.

2. Surgeries have been defined as clinical procedures occurring in a surgical specialty excluding diagnosis imaging, testing and rehabilitation procedures. This may misclassify a few procedures, and there might be a slight overestimation of the number of procedures, as this leads to the inclusion of some procedures that may not be perceived to be ‘surgery’ – such as those not requiring anaesthetic or any incision.

3. A death has been counted if both pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) were recorded on the death certificate, either as the underlying cause of death or in the contributory causes of death, and the patient had a hospital admission with a surgical procedure recorded in the prior 90 days to their date of death. The patient may have had an unrelated underlying cause of death but have DVT and PE recorded in the contributory causes of death. We are not able to determine if the deep-vein thrombosis was the cause of the pulmonary embolism.

Source: Public Health Scotland

Question reference: S6W-02619

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the suggestion that the TURAS vaccination management database should allow vaccination registrations to be added by GPs so that vaccines that have been administered abroad are recognised and recorded on the database.

Question reference: S6W-02609

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what post-operative guidance and information on venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention was provided to patients, or their carers, as part of the discharge process following orthopaedic surgery in (a) 2010, (b) 2015 and (c) 2020.

Question reference: S6W-02592

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on links between long COVID and deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and what research it is undertaking or planning to undertake into any such links.

With the British Heart Foundation Data Science centre, the University of Edinburgh is looking at the long-term risk of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism after infection with COVID-19. Analyses are currently ongoing, but results are anticipated soon.

This work is funded by the British Heart Foundation and the Stroke Association, with support from Health Data Research UK.

The Scottish Government is not funding research specifically investigating links between long-COVID and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). However, both direct research funding and research support funding has been provided to projects that are investigating the longer term effects of COVID-19.

On December 22 2020, the Chief Scientist Office announced the outcome of its funding call for Scottish-led research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 infection. Following a competitive independently peer reviewed process 9 long-COVID research projects were funded with a total funding commitment of around £2.5 million. Details of the funded projects are available from the Chief Scientist Office website.

Long Covid Call – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

Question reference: S6W-02487

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of people who have received a COVID-19 vaccination have been found subsequently to have antibodies for the virus.

In Scotland, it is estimated that over 9 in 10 adults, or 93.6% of the adult community population (95% credible interval: 92.3% to 94.7%) would have tested positive for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from a blood sample in the week beginning 9 August 2021, suggesting that they had the infection in the past or have been vaccinated. Those who have tested positive for antibodies may have obtained them from prior infection before vaccination.

Antibody data from the ONS COVID-19 infection survey was published by the Scottish Government on 1 September 2021 at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): ONS Infection Survey – antibody data – 1 September 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Question reference: S6W-02538

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comment by the then Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing on 4 June 2008 that "I have also made it clear to the Scottish Ambulance Service that it must take action to eliminate rostered single manning. The Scottish Government's policy is clear: traditional accident and emergency ambulances should be double-crewed, with at least one member being a paramedic, unless there are exceptional circumstances. In too many instances, particularly in the Highlands, practice is not living up to that policy...I have therefore asked the Scottish Ambulance Service to provide me with an action plan demonstrating how it intends to achieve the elimination of single-manning. I expect to receive that action plan by the end of this month", whether the commitment to no longer have single-crewed ambulances has been met and, if not, by what date it will be.

Ambulances are not single-crewed other than in exceptional circumstances, such as short notice unplanned staff absences, and every effort is made to double crew ambulances through rostered and relief staff, overtime or ambulance bank staff. Scottish Ambulance Service Technicians are able to deliver high quality care to patients, but where a paramedic skill set is required, paramedics will be tasked to calls.

The Scottish Government has been working closely with the Scottish Ambulance Service to reduce single-crewing wherever possible. Prior to COVID-19, we had a plan in place with the Service to reduce instances of single crewing. This resulted in instances of single crewing falling to 0.9% in quarter 1 of 2019/20.

Unfortunately as a result of COVID-19 there has been occasions where single crewing has had to be used as a result of late notice staff abstractions, however we are continuing to work with the Scottish Ambulance Service to reduce this where possible.

Question reference: S6W-02531

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding what clinical trials are taking place on the early treatment of COVID-19 using vitamins and/or drugs to help reduce the number of people requiring hospitalisation.

The UK-wide Principle Trial (Platform Randomised Trial of Treatments on the Community for Epidemic and Pandemic Illness) funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is looking at early treatment for COVID-19 to prevent ill health and hospitalisation. It is evaluating a number of potential treatments. More information about this trial is at: Join the PRINCIPLE Trial — PRINCIPLE Trial

The Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office is also funding a trial of a potential anti-viral medicine as an early treatment of COVID-19. More information about this trial is at: GETAFIX - Glasgow Early Treatment Arm FavipiravirX (getafix-trial.org.uk)