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-17958

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the 2013 target in Commitment 11 of the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015 has been met by each NHS board.

The CAMHS waiting time target was successfully delivered in March 2013 with 99% of those seen having waited less than 26 weeks from referral to treatment, with an average waiting time of six weeks.

Information on patients waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) Services is published quarterly. Publication of the data up to the end of March 2013 can be found at the link.

https://isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2013-05-28/2013-05-28-WT-CAMHS-Report.pdf?98824709654.

Question reference: S4W-17962

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken since the publication of the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015 to deliver faster access to psychological therapies.

On 27 August we made the first publication reporting on progress towards the target: Psychological Therapies Waiting Times in Scotland, available on the ISD website. Data will now be published quarterly.

The Scottish Government’s Quality and Efficiency Support Team (QuEST) are carrying out ongoing work to ensure that the right measures are in place to deliver, by providing health boards with a range of support across a number of areas, including quantifying demand and capacity, data analysis and service redesign. They recently held a two day event jointly with NHS Education Scotland (NES) on Improving Efficiency Without Compromising Quality, for staff involved in delivering the target.

Through NES, we continue to work to assess and develop workforce capacity to ensure that a range of staff are equipped to deliver therapies.

Question reference: S4W-17955

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have accessed NHS talking therapies in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) NHS board, (b) type of therapy, (c) gender and (d) age.

This information is not held centrally.

However, the first quarterly publication by Information Services Division (ISD) of psychological therapies waiting times in Scotland took place on 27 August 2013 and shows boards' progress towards the access to psychological therapies HEAT target during the quarter ending 30 June 2013. This information is broken down by NHS board. It is not currently broken down by type of therapy, gender or age, although there may be scope to collect and publish more detailed information breakdowns by relevant criteria as data collection is developed in future.

Question reference: S4W-17956

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment is has made of the need for talking therapies in the NHS.

While the Scottish Government sets the policy direction for the delivery of and access to psychological therapies, it is for Health Boards to determine the level and nature of the demand in their local areas.

In preparation for meeting the access to psychological therapies HEAT Target, many health boards have undertaken work to quantify demand and capacity within services delivering psychological therapies, and have carried out or are planning service redesign to best meet this demand.

Question reference: S4W-17967

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many child psychotherapists the NHS has recruited in 2013.

Question reference: S4W-17965

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent meetings it has had with See Me regarding its strategic direction.

In meeting Commitment 4 of the Mental Health Strategy to develop the strategic direction of See Me from 2013 onwards, the Scottish Government in collaboration with Comic Relief and with the support of the See Me management group, commissioned an external strategic review of See Me published in February 2013 which recommended the delivery of a re-founded See Me programme.

The task of re-founding See Me was awarded to the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) and the Mental Health Foundation (MHF).

The Scottish Government currently provide £1 million per year for this work and Comic Relief will provide additional funds of up to £500,000 per year, making the total budget for a re-founded programme in the region of £1.5 million per year.

In the course of this work, five meetings were held with the See Me management group from February to August 2013. In addition, there is regular communication between Scottish Government, SAMH, the MHF and Comic Relief on this agenda. The next See Me management meeting is scheduled for 29 November 2013 and quarterly thereafter.

Question reference: S4W-17959

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many hours of therapy on average patients who are referred to talking therapies receive.

Question reference: S4W-17970

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve the mental health of people aged over 65.

As part of our work towards delivering the Psychological Therapies HEAT Access target we established a working group to focus on the psychological needs of older people. The group identified the need to make improvements across the system. We are working with NHS boards and partners to take forward their recommendations, and develop outcome measures related to older people’s mental health.

We have set up a primary care and common mental health problems group to monitor progress against a range of related mental health strategy commitments, and a mental health of older people sub-group has been set up to specifically monitor the work around older people, including the work to take forward the recommendations above.

NHS Education for Scotland is delivering training for NHS staff in psychological interventions for older people, including training a cohort of older people CBT therapists.

Question reference: S4W-17961

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that the 2014 target in Commitment 11 in the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015 will be met.

The Scottish Government monitors health board performance against the CAMHS Waiting times HEAT target through monthly management in confidence updates from NHS Scotland Information Services Division (ISD) data which is published quarterly at the link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/.

Scottish Government officials also meet with health boards as part of our six monthly mental health implementation review which includes CAMHS as a extant agenda item, and through regular discussion with expert groups such as CAMHS Implementation Monitoring and support Group, and CAMHS Lead Clinicians.

Question reference: S4W-17968

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many trainee child psychotherapists each NHS board has recruited in 2013, also broken down by local authority area.