- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 22 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to ensure that haematologists are adequately represented in the assessment of new medicines.
Answer
The licensing of new medicines is reserved to the UK Government, and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Decisions around which medicines are made routinely available on the NHS in Scotland are made independently of Ministers and Parliament by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). The SMC is a committee of clinicians, pharmacists, NHS board representatives, the pharmaceutical industry and the public. The SMC also routinely consults with a network of experts in a wide variety of fields about all new medicines under review.
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 22 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what options patients in identified priority groups will have to access NHS influenza vaccinations, other than at their GP surgery.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31628 on 22 September 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 August 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 21 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many positive results from tests for COVID-19 there were on each day between 26 July and 19 August 2020, also expressed as a percentage of the total number of tests carried out in each NHS board area.
Answer
The Scottish Government publishes a range of daily and weekly data on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government does not currently publish a detailed breakdown of tests per board, instead publishing the number of new positive cases each day at a Scotland level and the cumulative number for each Health Board: available here https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-trends-in-daily-data/ . We are committed to providing robust data to monitor the evolving pandemic and undertake regular reviews of the information published on the SG website https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ and the UK coronavirus website https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ .
Further information is available on the Public Health Scotland Covid-19 dashboard https://publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/sharing-our-data-and-intelligence/coronavirus-covid-19-data-and-guidance/ . The Scottish Government has also produced analysis on ‘exceedance’ per Local Authority. This is to calculate whether the number of confirmed infections (based on testing) in each area exceeds the number that was expected, given the number recorded across the country. This is available here https://www.gov.scot/publications/?term=modelling&cat=filter&topics=Coronavirus%20in%20Scotland&publicationTypes=research-and-analysis&page=1 .
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 18 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of businesses in Aberdeen that (a) were forced to close as a result of targeted local restrictions in August 2020 and (b) have been able to benefit from the support funding previously announced, and what it plans to do to support the businesses that were forced to close but will be unable to access support due to the limited size of the funds previously announced.
Answer
On 19 August 2020 we announced funding of £1 million to provide grants of £1,000 and £1,500 to businesses that were required to close as a result of targeted local restrictions in Aberdeen. This included £100,000 of discretionary support for sectors not required to close by the regulations. The funding is administered by Aberdeen City Council. The Council estimate that around 600 businesses were required to close as a result of the restrictions. As of 14 September 2020, 129 businesses directly affected by the restrictions had received grants to the value of £145,000 and a further 75 businesses had accessed grants through the discretionary fund to the value of £84,500. No businesses have been unable to access support due to the limited size of the funds.
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 17 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government whether it is making the same type of interest-free loan that it has provided to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe available to other cultural venues or events and, if so, whether it will provide further information regarding this.
Answer
The Scottish Government has, as of 16 September, not received requests from other cultural venues or events for the provision of loans and has no current plans to make such loans available.
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what its projection is of the number of diagnoses for (a) leukaemia, (b) myeloma and (c) lymphoma over the next 10 years, and what plans it is putting in place to address these.
Answer
Latest Scottish cancer incidence projections for the period 2013-2027 were published by ISD Scotland on 18 August 2015. This data-set only includes projections for leukaemia and lymphoma, not myeloma.
The projected number of cases for the 2013-2027 period are 2,931 for leukaemia and 7,560 lymphoma (Hodgkin & Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma combined).
The next release of cancer incidence projections are due to be published this year (2020) by Public Health Scotland.
The Scottish Government is developing a Cancer Recovery Plan to be published this Autumn. Focusing specifically on service recovery across diagnosis and treatment over a two year period, the plan will tackle inequalities and re-design services to ensure a more resilient future across cancer services in Scotland for all patients.
Cancer incidence projections for Scotland
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to raise awareness of the symptoms of blood cancers.
Answer
Through the Scottish Government’s £42 million Detect Cancer Early Programme a new social marketing campaign was launched in September 2018 to raise awareness of potential cancer symptoms, including those of haematological (blood) cancers.
The Scottish Cancer Coalition – which blood cancer charities help form - was engaged heavily throughout the campaign and will remain involved in any future Scottish Government awareness raising activities.
The ‘Survivors’ campaign, which ran across TV, radio and online channels, aimed to highlight that more people are surviving cancer than ever before and reinforce the importance of acting early, while signposting to more information on common signs and symptoms. A roadshow also targeted around 30 locations across Scotland in 2019 to further raise awareness of potential symptoms.
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 September 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been diagnosed with blood cancers in each month since March 2020, and how this compares with the same period in 2019.
Answer
A monthly breakdown of cancers diagnosed in Scotland are not held by The Scottish Government. This data is collected by The Scottish Cancer Registry and published annually by Public Health Scotland.
Latest cancer incidence rates were published on 28 April 2020, capturing those diagnosed in 2018. This data shows that there were 2,363 blood cancers diagnosed in Scotland in 2018 (this includes Hodgkin Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Myeloma and Leukaemia).
2019 cancer incidence data is due to be published in April 2021.
2018 Cancer Incidence Data
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 August 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 14 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it gave to imposing local lockdown restrictions in areas of Aberdeenshire at the same time as these were introduced in Aberdeen City, and which areas were considered.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31366 on 7 September 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx
- Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 August 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 7 September 2020
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it imposed local lockdown restrictions in all of the Aberdeen City area, but in no other parts of the Aberdeen Travel to Work Area.
Answer
The Scottish Government considered the recommendations and data from the Grampian IMT, local clinical advice, and our own Scottish Government clinical advice. It was clear from this that the area of greatest concern was Aberdeen City, and as such the most proportionate action was to focus measures in that area. There was concern regarding any spread to Aberdeenshire and this was carefully monitored by the Grampian IMT, who did not advise that any additional measures were required and our own clinical advice supported this.
