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-31330

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints to NHS boards related to inadequate levels of patient care resulted in patients or their families taking legal action against the NHS in each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board.

Full information to thelevel of detail sought is not held centrally. The following table givesinformation on the numbers of new cases where legal action alleging clinicalnegligence has been taken over the whole of Scotland. A breakdown by NHS boardwould not be appropriate, since in the case of smaller boards it might enableindividual cases to be identified.

Year	Number of Complaints
2000	477
2001	465
2002	507
2003	460
2004	454
2005	400
2006	465

Question reference: S2W-31334

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average response time was to formal complaints made to an NHS board by patients or their families in each year since 2000, broken down by NHS board.

The following table shows themedian time (working days) to deal with complaints broken down by NHS board andfinancial year. Information broken down by calendar year is not available. All available statistical information on complaints madeagainst Hospital and Community Services is published annually and can be found athttp://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4362.html.

NHS Board	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Argyll and Clyde	15	19	19	15	28	32
Ayrshire and Arran	18	18	19	19	16	19
Borders	18	19	20	20	18	13
Dumfries and Galloway	15	13	18	9	15	20
Fife	19	20	20	24	20	19
Forth Valley	19	22	23	21	20	20
Grampian	20	18	19	17	20	16
Greater Glasgow	22	20	19	19	19	19
Highland	17	16	18	19	18	21
Lanarkshire	17	19	17	18	17	16
Lothian	16	15	16	13	14	16
Orkney	15	22	22	20	14	12
Shetland	14	17	17	19	18	19
Tayside	19	24	27	21	17	20
Western Isles	34	35	33	27	28	34
Scottish Ambulance Service	7	10	14	20	20	20
State Hospital, Carstairs	7	11	18	19	20	16

Question reference: S2W-31335

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints made to NHS boards concerning levels of patient care resulted in remedial action being taken by the hospital concerned in each year since 2000.

I would expect every justifiedcomplaint to an NHS board to be followed by appropriate remedial action. The greatmajority of complaints are, however, resolved locally and detailed information ontheir outcomes is not held centrally. Details of any remedial action required oncomplaints against the NHS upheld by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman areavailable in her reports, which are laid before Parliament and are publicly availableon http://www.spso.org.uk/.

Question reference: S2W-31336

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the ratio of charge nurses to staff nurses was in each year since 2000, also broken down by hospital and category of hospital ward.

Question reference: S2W-31329

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints were made to NHS boards about the level of patient care in each year since 2000, also broken down by hospital and category of ward.

The following table providesinformation on complaints made to NHS boards, including the State HospitalCarstairs, where “treatment” was raised as an issue, broken down by financialyear. It is not possible to provide a breakdown by hospital and category ofward or by calendar year. All available statistical information on complaints madeagainst Hospital and Community Services is published annually and can be foundat:http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4362.html.

NHS Board	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Argyll and Clyde	156	137	121	172	120	100
Ayrshire and Arran	149	179	115	177	161	143
Borders	39	33	36	57	32	39
Dumfries and Galloway	117	92	93	73	56	103
Fife	97	101	108	145	188	210
Forth Valley	57	69	66	93	104	108
Grampian	186	177	151	170	192	273
Greater Glasgow	431	365	332	408	380	384
Highland	120	77	106	108	135	135
Lanarkshire	230	298	273	276	253	237
Lothian	376	418	373	386	452	409
Orkney	7	2	5	8	5	6
Shetland	6	13	8	13	19	15
Tayside	171	171	97	147	162	165
Western Isles	12	13	23	12	16	21
State Hospital Carstairs	11	9	55	51	28	25

Question reference: S2W-31337

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many agency nurses were employed in hospitals in each year since 2000, broken down by hospital.

This information is not heldcentrally. Workforce statistics are available on the use of agency nurses and midwivesby NHS board.

The following table 1 shows thefigures for registered agency nurses. The following table 2 shows the figures fornon-registered agency nurses.

Table 1	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Table 1	Average Whole-Time Equivalent
Total	562.1	725.1	818.3	732.2	739.4	648.1	678.1
Registered	412.6	328.6	438.7	440.4	472.7	432.9	445.8
NHS Argyll and Clyde	16.8	12.0	38.3	40.8	45.8	53.6	90.5
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	8.9	7.1	5.6	14.4	11.9	9.8	11.1
NHS Borders	0.3	0.3	2.4	4.9	6.8	6.8	5.9
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	0.0	-	0.0	-	0.2	1.3	1.5
NHS Fife	23.1	28.9	28.9	24.0	25.7	29.4	48.3
NHS Forth Valley	6.7	8.3	8.7	10.6	8.4	19.3	25.4
NHS Grampian	14.5	14.0	30.1	40.0	39.8	29.5	27.2
NHS Greater Glasgow	148.9	47.5	162.7	146.2	129.4	127.8	114.9
NHS Highland	23.2	2.7	1.2	1.1	0.5	3.5	5.9
NHS Lanarkshire	3.2	25.4	39.1	29.7	30.7	5.1	6.4
NHS Lothian	157.4	169.1	90.7	102.9	167.7	136.5	97.1
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Shetland	0.5	0.2	1.2	0.1	-	0.8	1.0
NHS Tayside	9.0	13.1	29.0	20.3	2.4	4.4	7.1
NHS Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-	1.1	-
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	x	x	-	5.3	3.3	2.2	2.9

Table 2	1999-2000	2000-01		2001-02		2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Table 2	Average Whole-Time Equivalent
Non registered	149.5	254.7	379.6		291.8		266.7	215.1	232.3
NHS Argyll and Clyde	16.4	58.3	63.2		54.9		35.9	35.0	50.3
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	2.1	1.2	0.1		0.3		-	0.1	0.3
NHS Borders	-	0.3	0.5		0.9		0.4	9.0	4.2
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	-	0.0	-		-		-	-	-
NHS Fife	4.1	17.0	20.6		22.8		13.7	17.4	14.5
NHS Forth Valley	13.4	9.9	17.5		10.1		9.3	9.2	10.4
NHS Grampian	6.4	14.2	42.7		39.4		18.5	3.0	10.8
NHS Greater Glasgow	33.2	43.5	98.1		59.3		74.0	56.9	65.0
NHS Highland	4.5	7.1	8.1		11.4		10.6	5.0	19.1
NHS Lanarkshire	1.6	12.6	25.0		7.1		13.5	2.1	1.5
NHS Lothian	67.8	84.9	90.0		84.5		89.6	77.0	55.0
NHS Orkney	-	-	-		-		-	-	-
NHS Shetland	-	-	-		-		-	-	-
NHS Tayside	-	5.8	13.9		-		0.7	0.1	1.1
NHS Western Isles	-	-	-		-		-	-	-
National Services Scotland (formerly Common Services Agency)	x	x	-		-		-	-	0.1
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	x	x	-		1.0		0.4	0.3	0.0

Source: ISD Scotland NHSWorkforce Statistics.

Latest statistics at March2006.

Note: To calculate the averagewhole-time equivalent (WTE), WTE is taken as a contribution of 37.5 hours per weekX 52 = 1,950 hours per year.

Further information on the statistics,including information on how the data is collected and notes to aid interpretation,is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under workforce statistics,at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Question reference: S2W-31332

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients over the age of 75 and admitted to an acute hospital were subsequently diagnosed with MRSA in each year since 2000, broken down by hospital.

Question reference: S2W-31478

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 5 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive why the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive was not implemented in Scotland on 4 January 2006, as required by Article 15 of that directive.

Question reference: S2W-31479

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 5 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what evidence it has that Scotland does not have sufficient qualified or accredited experts for full implementation of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

I have asked Dr. Paul Stollard,Chief Executive of the Scottish Building Standards Agency (SBSA), to answer. Hisresponse is as follows:

In the early years of Directiveimplementation, it is estimated that there will be around 250,000 energy performancecertificates required per annum. The calculation tools which support the methodologyrequired by the Directive 2002/91/EC wereonly finalised in spring of 2006. Also, the agency is in the process of settingup protocols with professional organisations who can accredit their members to dothe certification and inspection work. Clearly there are not yet sufficient expertsto do this work and enable full implementation.

Question reference: S2W-31480

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 5 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive when the European Commission was notified of Scotland’s inability to implement the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive on time and what reasons were given to the commission.

I have asked Dr. Paul Stollard,Chief Executive of the Scottish Building Standards Agency (SBSA), to answer. Hisresponse is as follows:

The Directive was implementedin Scotland on time, on 4 January 2006.Notification of implementation to the European Commission was made in April 2006,to align with notification from England and Wales. As with the remainder of the UK, Scotland has chosen to derogate full implementation of Articles 7, 8 and9. The reason given to the Commission by the UK was on the basis of insufficient“Independent Experts” as required by Article 10 and permitted by Article 15.