- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken since 2007 to support access to alternative therapies and with what outcomes.
Answer
The Scottish Government recognises that complementary and alternative medicines may offer relief to some people suffering from a wide variety of conditions and leaves it open to NHS boards to provide these therapies based on their assessment of needs in their areas and in line with national guidance about treatment for the condition(s).
The treatment of individual patients is a matter of professional judgement and therefore the Scottish Government''s continued position is that the local NHS and clinicians are best placed to make decisions on what treatment is appropriate for their patients, including alternative therapies.
The extant guidance on NHS availability of complementary and alternative medicine therapies is the guidance issued to NHS boards in August 2005. The letter, NHS Circular HDL (2005) 37, is available at http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/HDL2005_37.pdf.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 4 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure the equal and full involvement of the parents or guardians of pupils attending independent and grant-aided special schools in the review of learning provision for children and young people with complex additional support needs.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that parents and guardians are given the opportunity to engage fully and meaningfully in the strategic review of learning provision for children and young people with complex additional support needs. The secretariat to the review will shortly be writing to the parents or guardians of pupils attending independent, grant-aided and local authority special schools with details of how they can both be kept informed of the review''s progress and engage with its working groups.
Communication activity will include a dedicated website for the review, opportunities for anyone with an interest in the review to register an e-mail address for updates and a regular blog from the review chair on the engage for education website. Both the strategic and working groups will consider how to ensure parents and pupils are meaningfully engaged in the review, and will involve parental stakeholders and representatives as necessary. The Scottish Government National Parental Involvement Coordinator is a member of the Strategic Review Group and will provide advice.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 4 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure the equal and full involvement in local authority educational consultations of those parents or guardians of pupils attending independent and grant aided special schools who are not represented by parent councils.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not have a role in this area. The Standards in Scotland''s Schools etc (Scotland) Act 2000 includes many provisions to make sure that parents are consulted on key issues at both school and education authority level.
In addition, the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 sets out the list of relevant proposals that must be consulted on by local authorities in line with the act''s provisions. However, this legislation only applies to schools managed by local authorities.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 4 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how many pupils receive annual fitness checks in school.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 3 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether a proposal to close a primary school that would also close a pre-five unit requires separate statements for the primary and pre-five children where the impact of the closure would have a different outcome for the different age groups.
Answer
The Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 sets out the consultation process that local authorities must adhere to when proposing the closure of a school, a school-based nursery and a stand alone local authority nursery school. As part of their statutory duties, local authorities must prepare an educational benefits statement which includes its assessment of the likely effects of the proposal on all of the affected pupils. There is however, no requirement to produce separate statements for different age groups.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 2 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-38740 by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2011, how many GP practices now have premium rate telephone numbers.
Answer
The answer was given in question S3W-38740, there are 40 GP practices with premium rate telephone numbers.
All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 2 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken to deliver more flexible service hours for healthcare services since 2007.
Answer
The Scottish Government introduced two Directed Enhanced Services, Extended Hours Access for GP Practices and Nursing Provision for Extended Hours Access released on 1 April 2008 and 25 June 2008 and these are currently ongoing.
These services provided financial support for GP practices to provide pre-booked appointments to their patients outwith the recognised core hours of 8.00am to 6.30pm.
In addition, many GP practices demonstrated flexibility by running weekend clinics during 2009 and 2010 to deliver the pandemic and seasonal flu vaccines.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 1 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive which NHS boards use private sector providers to deliver their occupational health services.
Answer
NHS Health Scotland is the only NHSScotland board to use a private sector provider to deliver their occupational health service.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 1 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how long it considers investigations of allegations of harassment or bullying should take.
Answer
It is for individual employers to decide how long they consider it is reasonable for investigations into bullying or harassment to take. The Scottish Government''s Fairness at Work policy states that it expects formal complaints made under the policy to be resolved within five weeks.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 1 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason NHS Health Scotland uses a private provider for its occupational health service rather than NHS Lothian.
Answer
NHS Health Scotland uses a private provider for its occupational health service because, having retendered for this service, as required by law, and having undertaken a procurement process in line with current legislation, this private provider was deemed to offer best value for money compared to other organisations which tendered for the contract.
