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: S4T-00678

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 April 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on a recent study that indicates that the reduction in staffed hospital beds in Scotland is happening at one of the fastest rates in the developed world.

Question reference: S4W-20279

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government where NHS boards that do not provide plastic surgery procedures refer patients requiring such procedures.

Plastic surgery procedures are currently undertaken by consultant plastic surgeons in NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and NHS Tayside. NHS boards that do not provide this type of procedure will refer patients to one of these centres of expertise for in-patient care.

In addition, out-patient consultations and treatments, including minor day surgery, are also provided by plastic surgery consultants at outreach clinics located in other health board areas.

Question reference: S4W-20278

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS boards provide plastic surgery procedures and in which hospitals.

Plastic surgery centres of expertise are located within NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and NHS Tayside.

Plastic surgery services are concentrated in these four NHS board areas, with
in-patient services centred in the following hospitals:

NHS Board	NHS Hospital
NHS Grampian	Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	Glasgow Royal Infirmary
	Royal Hospital for Sick Children
NHS Lothian	St John’s Hospital
	Royal Hospital for Sick Children
NHS Tayside	Ninewells Hospital

Question reference: S4W-20277

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many plastic surgeons the NHS has employed in each of the last four years, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested on the number of plastic surgeons the NHS has employed in each of the last four years broken down by NHS Board is provided in the following table.

Headcount of plastic surgeons employed by the NHS in each of the last four years, broken down by NHS board

	Sep 10¹	Mar 11	Jun 11	Sep 11¹	Dec 11	Mar 12	Jun 12	Sep 12¹	Dec 12	Mar 13	Jun 13	Sep 13¹	Dec 13
Scotland	107	103	100	103	103	100	101	92	94	94	94	92	101
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Borders	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Fife	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Forth Valley	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Grampian	16	14	14	12	13	14	14	11	12	11	12	15	14
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	35	34	34	36	39	39	38	32	35	40	38	39	35
NHS Highland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Lanarkshire	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Lothian	35	32	29	33	29	29	27	24	22	22	21	16	27
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Tayside	21	23	23	22	22	18	22	25	25	21	23	22	25
NHS Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
National Bodies and Special Health Boards	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System, ISD Scotland

Question reference: S4W-20314

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider amending the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2003 to increase the fixed penalty for fouling.

The Scottish Government ran a consultation on measures to promote responsible dog ownership, which closed on 31 March 2014. Along with a number of other issues such as microchipping and licensing, this consultation invited respondents’ to give their views on dog fouling and comment on any measures which might help to reduce the presence of dog fouling.

Once the responses to this consultation have been analysed, we will consider those views carefully before making decisions about next steps.

Question reference: S4W-20252

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what support exists for patients in Scotland equivalent to the Patient and Advice Liaison Service in England and how much funding has been allocated to it in each of the last three years.

The Patient Advice and Support Service (PASS), established as part of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, replaced the Independent Advice and Support Service (IASS) in Scotland. PASS, procured through a national contract with Citizen’s Advice Scotland, is delivered through the network of Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland. The IASS costs and contract costs for PASS, agreed for three years from 1 April 2012, are as follows:

	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
IASS	£946,407
PASS		£1,192,753	£1,147,011	£1,181,276

Further information about PASS is available at: http://www.cas.org.uk/patientadvice.

Question reference: S4W-20045

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many neonatal beds there were in each NHS board in each of the last four years.

The following table shows the current provision of neonatal cots by NHS board in Scotland. Figures for the provision of cots for the past four years were not provided by all boards.

NHS health board	Neonatal care cots
Ayrshire and Arran	20
Borders	8
Dumfries and Galloway	13
Fife	20
Forth Valley	21
Grampian	38
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	92
Highland	11
Lanarkshire	35
Lothian*	37
Orkney	Neonatal services not provided by board
Shetland	Neonatal services not provided by board
Tayside	21
Western Isles	Neonatal services not provided by board

* Does not include figures for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

Question reference: S4W-20020

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 19 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many people aged (a) 60 to 64, (b) 65 to 74, (c) 75 to 84 and (d) over 85 were resident in (i) local authority and (ii) private care homes in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S4W-20046

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 19 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what the average occupancy rate has been for each specialist neonatal unit in each of the last four years, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S4W-19992

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 18 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-13476 by Keith Brown on 19 March 2013, whether it now plans to extend the national concessionary travel scheme to include other community transport services and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Government has no plans to extend the national concessionary travel scheme to include additional categories of community transport services at this time.

The scheme was designed for commercial bus services. Community transport is very different, involving an estimated 900 vehicles, of which around a third are buses or minibuses and around two thirds are cars. These provide a diverse range of services, many of which are very unlike conventional bus services.

Against this background, we agree with the conclusions of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee’s report on Community transport 2013, that there are a number of logistical and administrative difficulties which make including all community transport services in the scheme problematic. Cost is an important consideration. Age Scotland have estimated the additional cost to the scheme at around £11.2 million a year, though there are considerable uncertainties over this figure and the cost of extension would probably be higher, especially as this figure is based on existing fares and levels of usage. Other issues include the need for equipment, such as ticket machines, required to participate in the scheme and the possible need for multiple levels of reimbursement, since it has been suggested that community transport operators would require reimbursement at higher rates than commercial bus operators.