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: S2W-09483

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 27 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the ratio of cleaners to beds was in the NHS in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S2W-09486

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 27 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many first consultant out-patient appointments were not attended by the patient in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board, and what the cost was of these missed appointments to the NHS.

The number of patients whodid not attend their first out-patient appointment with a consultant, followingreferral by their GP, by NHS board area of residence, during each of the last fiveyears is given in the table.Information on the cost tothe NHS of patients failing to keep appointments is not available centrally. Manyout-patient clinics schedule additional appointments to compensate for non-attendance.Information on the average cost of a consultant outpatient attendance isavailable on the Information and Statistics Division website at: http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/info3.jsp?pContentID=1370&p_applic=CCC&p_serv.

The Centre for Change and Innovation is overseeing a £3 million patient-focused booking initiativeacross NHSScotland. Pilot sites are implementing changes and their impact onDNA rates are being monitored. Early indications are that Patient-FocusedBooking is resulting in substantial reductions to DNA rates and cancellationsat all 30 major hospital booking sites included in the CCI Programme.

Nhsscotland: Number of PatientsThat Did Not Attend Their First Out-patient Appointment, by NHS Board Area of Residence,During The Years Ended 31 March 2000, 31 March 2001,31 March 2002, 31 March 2003 And 31 March 2004^P.

NHS Board	Year Ended 31 March 2000	Year Ended 31 March 2001	Year Ended 31 March 2002	Year Ended 31 March 2003	Year Ended 31 March 2004^P
Argyll and Clyde	14,034	13,957	14,476	14,888	14,083
Ayrshire and Arran	10,797	10,717	11,850	12,233	11,971
Borders	1,617	1,572	1,588	1,692	1,815
Dumfries and Galloway	2,211	2,302	2,383	2,247	2,163
Fife	9,800	9,970	10,072	9,855	10,148
Forth Valley	6,692	6,837	7,216	6,766	7,234
Grampian	9,255	9,882	10,323	9,812	9,355
Greater Glasgow	45,943	42,619	47,947	49,242	43,546
Highland	3,969	3,855	3,758	3,753	4,043
Lanarkshire	20,116	19,264	19,748	21,494	19,330
Lothian	22,971	23,012	22,500	21,843	21,362
Orkney Islands	128	145	159	174	167
Shetland Islands	193	224	185	254	206
Tayside	13,873	13,676	13,920	13,075	10,541
Western Isles	497	558	570	670	561
NHSSCOTLAND	162,414	158,900	166,999	168,574	156,853

Source: ISD Scotland,SMR00.

Note:^pProvisional.

Question reference: S2W-09482

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 27 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of the population has access to the internet from home, broken down by local authority area.

The following table shows the percentage of the adultpopulation with home access to the internet broken down by local authorityarea. This is taken from the Scottish Household Survey and shows data for 2001-02. We expect the 2002-03 figures to be published on 5 August 2004.

Adult Population	%
Aberdeen City	35
Aberdeenshire	35
Angus	31
Argyll and Bute	30
Clackmannanshire	26
Dumfries and Galloway	21
Dundee City	24
East Ayrshire	25
East Dumbartonshire	43
East Lothian	35
East Renfrewshire	42
Edinburgh City	36
Eilean Siar	24
Falkirk	28
Fife	29
Glasgow City	22
Highland	34
Inverclyde	27
Midlothian	30
Moray	29
North Ayrshire	21
North Lanarkshire	25
Orkney	29
Perth and Kinross	32
Renfrewshire	28
Scottish Borders	31
Shetland	40
South Ayrshire	30
South Lanarkshire	30
Stirling	37
West Dunbartonshire	25
West Lothian	32
Scotland	29

Question reference: S2W-09495

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 27 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have died in Scotland over each of the last three years as a direct or indirect result of a hospital-acquired infection.

The General Register Officefor Scotland collates information on the cause of death, collected when a deathis registered, using the World Health Organisation’s InternationalClassification of Diseases (ICD). Not all infections have a specific ICD code; inaddition, there is no way of distinguishing deaths involving infectionsacquired in hospital from those acquired in the community using ICD codes.

Question reference: S2W-09382

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 26 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any external finance limits were overshot by public bodies within its responsibility in the last financial year and, if so, by which bodies and what action was taken in response.

External Finance Limits (EFL) apply to cash accounting and as the Scottish Executive has operated on a resource accounting system since 2002-03 they no longer apply.

I am pleased to report that all of the non-departmental public bodies spent within their agreed final budgets. There are however, four health boards who are expected¹ to exceed their Revenue Resource Limit:

NHS Argyll and Clyde

NHS Grampian

NHS Lanarkshire

NHS Western Isles

NHS boards are clear that any such overspends are carried forward to the next year, and that we expect plans to eliminate them to be in place.

The audited annual accounts for NHS boards are not yet available and the number of boards with deficits may change.

Question reference: S2W-08360

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 21 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received the revised business case for the Borders railway and when it will be published.

Question reference: S2W-09380

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 21 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-8994 by Mr Tom McCabe on 24 June 2004, which NHS boards applied for approval for schemes to assist eligible patients with travel expenses in order to access primary NHS dental treatment and, of these, how many applications were successful in (a) 1999-00, (b) 2000-01, (c) 2001-02, (d) 2002-03 and (e) 2003-04 and how the availability of these schemes was publicised.

Question reference: S2W-09385

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 21 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-8971 by Mr Tom McCabe on 24 June 2004, when the review of the current guidance for continuing care criteria in Management Executive Letter (1996) 22 will be concluded, when the results will be published and which personnel are conducting the review.

Question reference: S2W-09383

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 21 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital beds there are in each health board area per 1,000 head of population.

Information on average available staffed beds, rate per 1,000 population in each NHS board area for the year ending 31 March 2004 is shown in the table below.

NHSScotland - Average Available Staffed Beds, Rate Per 1,000 Population^1,2; by Health Board Area: Year Ending 31 March 2004^P

Scotland	5.9
Argyll and Clyde	6.5
Ayrshire and Arran	5.6
Borders	6.1
Dumfries and Galloway³	5.6
Fife	5.0
Forth Valley	4.9
Grampian³	6.0
Greater Glasgow	7.1
Highland	6.1
Lanarkshire	5.4
Lothian	5.4
Orkney	4.9
Shetland	4.6
Tayside	6.4
Western Isles	8.7

Source: ISD Scotland [FormISD(S)1].

^PProvisional.

Notes:

1. Includes joint-user and contractual hospitals.

2. Crude rates per 1,000 mid-year population forecast at 30 June 2003. These figures should be considered with caution as they take no account of cross boundary flow, ie, beds will not necessarily serve only the local population.

3. Some information is estimated.

Question reference: S2W-09304

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 20 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the expenditure per mile was on roads maintenance in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority.