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: S1W-11536

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 7 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce any initiatives which integrate prison support with community support to ensure that prisoners with drug problems receive continuity of care and treatment on release.

Question reference: S1W-10268

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 4 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are any plans to give local health care co-operatives some degree of commissioning powers.

Question reference: S1W-11389

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 4 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made on the implementation of the Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland.

The Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland set out a six-year implementation programme to September 2003.

Progress has been good in some areas, less so in others. The Mental Health and Well Being Support Group has been established specifically to help agencies advance the implementation programme against the timetable and ambitions set out in the framework.

The support group, chaired by Dr Ian Pullen, (Consultant Psychiatrist, Borders Primary Care NHS Trust) includes local authority and NHS professional membership, service user and carer representatives. The Chairman is also free to co-opt any individuals he considers appropriate to the delivery of the group's task. The group have completed six visits of a rolling programme across Scotland to meet all partner care agencies and service user and carer representatives.

The aim for all is full implementation by 2003 of a modern, flexible and responsive mental health service as set out in the framework.

Question reference: S1W-11408

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 4 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-10729 by Ross Finnie on 13 November 2000, what environmental disbenefits could be associated with imported organic foods.

Question reference: S1W-10358

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to fund a comprehensive programme to check each patient's resistance to drugs before treatment of HIV begins.

Antiviral susceptibility testing, which permits an assessment to be made of each patient's resistance to antiviral drugs, has only recently been developed from research. The testing involved is very complex and requires considerable expertise, which is not yet widely available within the NHS.

At present, antiviral susceptibility testing is used only when treatment fails. The Executive has made arrangements for such tests in respect of Scottish patients to be carried out by the Public Health Laboratory Service in Birmingham.

The Medical Research Council is currently funding a trial towards developing and testing guidelines and establishing protocols for treatment, which would define the circumstances in which resistance tests would be of benefit. The outcome of this work should indicate whether there will be significant benefits from introducing a resistance test for all or some HIV patients, prior to commencing antiviral drug therapy.

Question reference: S1W-10359

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what action is being taken to address any increased drug resistance amongst HIV patients.

Question reference: S1W-11359

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-8826 by Susan Deacon on 14 August 2000, what programme of change has been established by the Chairman of the State Hospitals Board and what progress has been made in addressing the findings of the Mental Welfare Commission on the State Hospital, Carstairs.

The report which I have received from the Chairman of the State Hospital's Board covers a range of measures designed to:

improve multi-disciplinary working across the hospital;

expand the range and availability of psychological interventions to benefit all patients;

introduce systems to ensure that patients are given the right interventions and therapies at the right time, and

improve corporate and clinical governance with the hospital.

Some of these measures have been or are being addressed at present while others will require additional resources. When final decisions have been made on the funding consequences I shall reply to the Chairman. At that time, I shall be happy to fulfil the undertaking I gave to the Parliament on 30 March to report back to members and to the Health and Community Care Committee with further details of how the Commission's recommendations are being implemented.

Question reference: S1W-03898

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 January 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to use private sector hospitals to assist NHS patients in future.

Question reference: S1W-03884

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 January 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to utilise private sector health providers in order to enhance patient care.

Question reference: S1W-07933

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether "postcode prescribing" will continue, given that B-interferon is being prescribed in Tayside and Grampian but not in Glasgow or Edinburgh.

It is a matter for each health board to determine its prescribing policy on drugs, taking into account advice from local Drug and Therapeutic Committees. When the Health Technology Board for Scotland begins work later this summer, health boards will have access to a single focus of national advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of health technologies, including drugs. This will help to reduce the incidence of so-called postcode prescribing in future.