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: S5W-22348

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is regarding increasing coverage in cities as part of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme.

The vast majority of premises in Scotland’s cities can access fibre broadband, with coverage as high as 99.3% in Dundee and 98.6% in Edinburgh.

EU State Aid legislation requires public funding for broadband deployment only to be used in areas of market failure. In order for DSSB to be granted State Aid approval, it was necessary for the city centres of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow to be removed from the scope of the programme.

DSSB does, however, deploy to the wider city areas with around 30,500 premises in Aberdeen, 32,700 premises in Edinburgh and over 91,300 premises in Glasgow capable of accessing fibre broadband as a result of Scotland’s £400 million DSSB programme.

Dundee, Stirling, Inverness and Perth city centres are all within scope of the DSSB programme and across the Scottish Parliamentary region of Lothian, DSSB has been able to directly support access to fibre broadband to 62,944 premises and, among these, 61,282 are able to achieve speeds of 24 megabits per second or better.

In parallel with further deployment under DSSB, there continues to be significant private sector investment in broadband across Scotland’s cities with City Fibre, Virgin Media and Openreach prominent in delivery services in Edinburgh.

Question reference: S5O-03156

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of graduates from Scottish medical schools go on to work in the NHS in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-22606

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many community-based baby and child cardiac liaison nurses each NHS board has.

The requested information is not held centrally by ISD.

ISD Scotland publishes quarterly data on the NHS workforce. Nursing and Midwifery Sub Job Family data has been published on the ISD website and is available at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-03-05/Nursing-and-Midwifery.asp

Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) data has been published on the ISD website available here: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Clinical_Nurse_Specialists_S2018.xls .

ISD Scotland data on CNS categories is incomplete because of data quality concerns in a number of NHS Boards. ISD Scotland is working with these NHS Boards on their concerns.

The Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) specialty categories used nationally were historically agreed between Scottish Government and NHS Boards. At present there is no specific category for child cardiac liaison nurses.

As well as working with Boards on data quality, ISD Scotland is also reviewing the CNS definition, role and specialty categories and has confirmed that it intends to recommence the publication of CNS data in December 2019.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with ISD Scotland and NHS Boards to ensure improved recording.

Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/ .

Question reference: S5W-22610

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on patients of the closure of migraine services in NHS Lothian.

Question reference: S5W-22604

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many screening appointments for each cancer type have been cancelled in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-22631

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what work is carried out with people who have (a) blood and (b) other types of cancer regarding their experiences of living with the condition and how this impacts on their physical and mental wellbeing, and how the NHS uses this to inform the action that it takes to improve their quality of life.

The Cancer Strategy, Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action, has set out a number of specific actions to support people living with and beyond a cancer diagnosis. This includes a commitment to support access to health and social care services during and after treatments for all types of cancer, for example through Link Workers to provide support in local communities, and initiatives such as Macmillan's Improving the Cancer Journey. Further to this, the Scottish Government has partnered with Macmillan Cancer Support to perform a Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey, the results of which will be released at the end of April 2019 and will be reported at local and national level. Within the report will be a dashboard where health boards can access their particular results.

Question reference: S5W-22532

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the benefits of the new clinical decision support system were it to be rolled out throughout the NHS.

Question reference: S5W-22531

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates the timescale will be for the full roll-out of the new clinical decision support system in the NHS.

Question reference: S5W-22530

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the research by Dr Kathrin Cresswell of the University of the Edinburgh into how useful GPs, involved in a pilot study, found the new clinical decision support system.

The Scottish Government commissioned the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI) to lead on this work. It was the DHI that commissioned the University of Edinburgh to conduct this research. They have now received it and are in the process of liaising with other partners on these findings in order to prepare a formal recommendation to the Scottish Government on next steps. The Scottish Government are anticipating receiving this in May and can consider future developments at that point.

Question reference: S5W-22346

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 23 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21616 by Joe FitzPatrick on 27 February 2019, whether it will provide an update on the timescale for the development and publication of the Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland, and what consultation will take place with patients and other stakeholders as part of this process.

Work on the Respiratory care Action Plan for Scotland is being taken forward with a wide range of stakeholders across the respiratory community and third sector, such as the British Lung Foundation and Chest Heart Stroke Scotland, ensuring that the patients voice is heard throughout its development.

At this stage our expectation remains to publish the Plan in late 2019, at which stage it will be available for consultation.