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: S4W-30708

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 March 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 23 March 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to health visitors for the delivery of community paediatric services in Midlothian.

Midlothian paediatric services are managed by Midlothian Health and Social Care Partnership and are entirely separate from the health visiting service. The paediatric service is led by a designated paediatrician who provides clinics in Midlothian. Pre-school children are referred to the community paediatric service from a variety of sources. Thereafter children’s needs are assessed and referral is made to the most appropriate professional. It is for NHS Lothian to plan and deliver services to meet the needs of their local population, taking account of available evidence and good practice guidance.

The Scottish Government refreshed the role of health visitors in Scotland in 2015. The primary role of a health visitor is to improve the health and wellbeing of children under five. We are also investing in an extra 500 health visitors to make sure NHS Scotland has the right levels of staff to meet the needs of children under five.

Question reference: S4W-30707

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 March 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 March 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent health visitors have been employed in Midlothian in each year since 2010.

Information on the number of health visitors in Midlothian is not centrally held.

Information on the number of whole time equivalent health visitors in NHS Lothian is published by Information Services Division Scotland and is shown in the following table.

Due to the recent review of community nurse data, information on health visitors is not comparable to earlier years, and is shown from 2014 onwards.

Table 1: Number (whole time equivalent) of bands 1-9 health visitors as at 31 December 2014 and 31 December 2015.

Bands 1-9	Dec-14	Dec-15	% change Dec-14 to Dec-15
NHS Lothian	271.9	276.9	1.8%

Sources: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System.