- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many students will be graduating as nurses in the 2021-22 academic year, and how many nurses posts will be available for the graduates.
Answer
Students who will be graduating as nurses in the 2021-22 academic year are still completing their education programmes and most are not due to graduate until September. While it is still therefore early in the recruitment process, the following table shows the number of graduates expected from Scottish universities by September and the estimated number of posts to be offered by NHS Boards for newly qualified nurses. At present the number of posts available equates to 87.1% of the total graduate workforce. These numbers are subject to revision as the recruitment process continues and more graduates are offered posts.
| No. of graduates expected by September 21 (data based on university predictions) | No. of posts specifically available for newly qualified nurses in NHS Scotland Boards |
Nursing | 2,963 | 2,582 |
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the additional costs associated with the remedial works and delayed opening of the new Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh.
Answer
The cost of rectification for the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh project is £16.8 million. This consists of: £10.3 million relating to remedial works at the new facilities; £2.8 million for maintaining existing sites; and £3.7 million project and professional costs relating to ongoing project management and required specialist review.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many radiotherapy training places have there been in each academic year, since 2015.
Answer
Radiography education is not commissioned or controlled by the Scottish Government. The following table sets out the number of entrants to accredited radiography courses at Scottish Universities each academic year. The courses included match the Health and Care Professions Council’s (HCPC) list of accredited courses from 2015-16.
Entrants to accredited pre-registration radiography courses.
Year | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
Therapeutic Radiography | 54 | 71 | 47 | 47 | 43 |
Diagnostic Radiography | 119 | 146 | 140 | 152 | 155 |
Total | 173 | 217 | 187 | 199 | 198 |
Source: HESA Student Population
Clinical Radiology
The following table gives the overall established number of Clinical Radiology trainee posts in place in each year from 2015 to 2021:
Clinical Radiology Programme Establishment |
2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
121 | 129 | 139 | 149 | 160 | 172 | 182 |
The above table includes Scottish Government funding for 18 additional posts between 2015 and 2017 with a further commitment of another 50 funded posts, 10 per year from 2018.
Source: NHS Education for Scotland (NES) medical trainee establishment data
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on prescriptions in each of the last five years, and how many people received a prescription.
Answer
The cost of medicines and appliances in the past five financial years, 2016-17 to 2020-21, is shown in Table 1. These data relate to community dispensing only.
Table 1 – Gross Ingredient Cost (£), 2016/17 – 2020/21 Year | Gross Ingredient Cost (GIC) (£) |
2016-17 | 1,137,588,236 |
2017-18 | 1,170,761,719 |
2018-19 | 1,142,104,457 |
2019-20 | 1,175,878,909 |
2020-21 | 1,118,110,484 |
Source: Public Health Scotland, PIS (Prescribing Data)
Reference: IR2021-00410
The number of people who have received a prescription in the last five years has recently been provided in an answer to S5W-36221 on 30 April 2021. This presented the number of patients with a paid prescription by financial year from financial year 2009-2010 to financial year 2020-2021 (partial year to December 2020 data).
All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what medicines are excluded from free prescriptions.
Answer
All medicines prescribed for patients in Scotland on the NHS are free. Prescription charges were removed by the Scottish Government in 2011. Scottish Ministers believe that prescription charges are a barrier to good health for many people. This is particularly so for those with long-term conditions and those on low incomes who in the past have faced choices about which medicines they can afford to take. Evidence shows that this can lead to deterioration in health, absence from work, or extra hospital admissions.
Scottish Ministers believe that healthcare should be free at the point of access for everyone: this is the founding principle of the NHS. By abolishing prescription charges, we have ensured that everyone can access the medicines they need and make choices about managing and improving their health, whatever their income.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many young people aged (a) under 12, (b) 12 to 15 and (c) 16 to 17 have been in hospital with COVID-19 each week in 2021.
Answer
This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland
Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021
To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government is supporting the NHS, in light of reports of wards being full and an increase in patients with serious and complex conditions.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what medicines or other products are unavailable from the free prescription service due to shortages of supply, broken down by (a) the reason for each shortage, (b) when it expects each shortage to be resolved and (c) whether it will allow a substitution option for each medicine or product until supplies resume.
Answer
Shortages of medicines are an ongoing part of the day to day management of the NHS. The pricing and supply of medicines are reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government have regular engagement with the UK Government regarding the management medicine shortages as part of the UK Medicine Shortage Response Group.
Medicine shortages can occur for a range of reasons including supplier difficulty in sourcing core ingredients, removal of drugs from pharmaceutical provider lists and international supply issues. Most shortages are short in nature. Shortages are ameliorated by prescribing alternative medicines or therapeutics until a shortage is over. Information on current and ongoing supply issues relating to individual drugs or devices is shared by NHS Scotland via Medicine Supply Alert Notices (MSAN) with the relevant networks within the service to help prescribers and dispensers meet patients’ on-going medical needs. MSANs are published at SHOW - SGHSC - Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates . The NHS Scotland Prescribing Advisers’ Network provides support to prescribers on the use of alternative products.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on providing COVID-19 vaccinations for under 16-year-olds.
Answer
We are not currently vaccinating children under 16 years old, except for those seriously at risk. As COVID-19 vaccines are currently unlicensed for those under 16, vaccines can only be offered on an exceptional case by case basis by a prescriber based on a risk assessment of an individual.
Clinical trials are currently underway for vaccination of children and young people, and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is currently reviewing vaccinations for 12-15 year olds.
The Scottish Government continues to engage with vaccine developers and the JCVI so that if trials are successful we are ready to vaccinate younger age groups, if that is what the clinical and scientific evidence supports.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government by what date its fast-track cancer diagnostic centres will be open in (a) NHS Fife (b) NHS Ayrshire and Arran, and (c) all other health boards.
Answer
Referrals to Scotland’s first Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (ECDC) went live in NHS Dumfries & Galloway on 17 May 2021, NHS Fife on 7 June 2021, with NHS Ayrshire & Arran due to come on stream on 21 June 2021. Wider roll-out will be determined by an independent evaluation overseen by the multi-disciplinary Oversight Group for the Centres.
