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: S5O-02466

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how the extra funding that it announced in July 2018 to support breastfeeding services has been distributed.

Question reference: S5W-19047

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government by what date the reported issues regarding the 2018 police pay award will be resolved.

Question reference: S5W-19059

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-18853 by John Swinney on 25 September 2018, how many places were offered to the applicants each year.

Question reference: S5W-19235

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the University of Strathclyde will not be offering its educational psychology course in 2019, and what impact it considers this will have on recruitment challenges within educational psychology.

We understand that the University of Strathclyde has taken the decision not to invite applications for a 2019 intake to the MSc in Educational Psychology programme. While this is unfortunate, universities are autonomous institutions with responsibility for managing their own course provision and it is for universities themselves to decide the courses they offer.

The Scottish Government has begun discussions to secure alternative provision for the course. We remain committed to delivering a sustainable and regular supply of educational psychologists to meet future need.

Question reference: S5W-19275

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 15 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to concerns that translabial ultrasounds are not available within the NHS in Scotland and whether it has any plans to introduce such services.

Translabial scanning is not offered routinely by the NHS, either in Scotland or in England. This is because clinicians in both jurisdictions advise that there is no clinical evidence to support routine use.

This position is supported by draft NICE guidance entitled “Urinary incontinence (update) and pelvic organ prolapse in women: management,” which recommends that further research into translabial scanning be undertaken because, at present, there is no data to support claims that it is a necessary tool in the diagnosis and management of mesh complications.

The draft NICE guidance is presently open to public consultation and can be viewed here: www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-ng10035/consultation/html-content-2 .

Question reference: S5W-18954

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-00931 by Shona Robison on 13 July 2016, whether this information is now recorded centrally and, if so, what the (a) average and (b) longest waiting time to see a hearing specialist has been in each year since 2016, broken down by NHS board.

This data is not collected centrally. Although audiology services are covered by the 18 weeks referral to treatment target the information ISD receive from health boards are aggregated returns and specialty information is not published. Audiology services are not covered by the stage of treatment standards asthis is not a consultant led service. However individual health boards will be able to provide the member with this information.

Question reference: S5W-18969

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 5 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many babies requiring drug dependency support have been born in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board.

The numbers of babies reported in the Scottish Birth Record (SBR) as having a diagnosis of ‘foetus and newborn affected by maternal use of drugs of addiction’ or ‘neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drug addiction’ in Scotland during the period 2006-07 to 2016-17 are provided in the following table. The figures presented cover three year aggregates to avoid disclosing small numbers in each individual year. Further suppression of small numbers has been applied as per ISD’s Statistical Disclosure Control policy in order to protect patient confidentiality.

Care should be taken when comparing these data over time as there has been an improvement in drug misuse recording in recent years. It is also worth noting that recording practice of drug misuse diagnoses may vary between hospitals, which may explain some of the variation between NHS Boards.

Table of information has been lodged with SPICe under reference Bib number 60118.

Question reference: S5W-18987

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have presented at A&E with alcohol intoxication in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board.

A flag to indicate if alcohol was involved in an A&E admission was introduced into the A&E datamart in July 2010.

The ‘alcohol involved’ flag is optional and currently poorly recorded or not recorded at all by some NHS Boards. For this reason, the data requested cannot be reliably provided. ISD are working with NHS Boards to try and improve the quality and completeness of recording this data item.

Alcohol-related hospital discharge statistics are published annually by Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland. The latest report , Alcohol Related Hospital Statistics 2016/17 was published on the 21st November 2017.

Question reference: S5W-18982

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of student nurses did not complete their courses before graduation in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-18967

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many children requiring a wheelchair have not received one within the 18 weeks’ time from referral in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board.

The following table shows specialist provision of wheelchairs
per year for children under the age of 18 from 2014-15 onwards.

Data for earlier years is not held in any comparable format. Data
for 2018 only part year.

		2014-15		2015-16		2016-17		2017-18		Apr’8-Aug’18
		Total	> 18wks	Total	> 18wks	Total	> 18wks	Total	> 18wks	Total	> 18wks
NHS Board	Ayr & Arran	237	9	198	2	251	7	220	7	71	3
	Borders	44	1	29	1	30	9	22	9	19	7
	Dum & Gal.	95	6	69	2	88	4	55	3	22	3
	Fife	216	18	199	22	120	50	111	52	67	18
	Forth Val.	149	4	136	6	184	7	169	13	75	5
	Grampian	239	45	187	45	173	86	185	80	99	36
	GG&C	657	27	691	16	822	18	603	13	279	9
	Highland	61	2	60	5	72	10	53	5	35	4
	Lanark.	327	21	340	10	379	21	328	12	153	4
	Lothian	457	28	400	28	269	87	304	128	154	49
	Orkney	5	2	6	3	1	1	3	3	1	0
	Shetland	9	2	8	3	7	2	11	1	3	1
	Tayside	312	10	266	12	285	25	267	14	103	4
	West. Isles	0	0	1	0	4	0	1	0	1	1

Sourced from ReTIS

The table includes all provision by the Wheelchair Services to children under the age
of 18 and not just “new wheelchairs” i.e. it will include referrals for provision of wheelchair
seating.
We only have records of performance against the 18 week target for provision requiring
a specialist assessment. Other data is not collated.
While there are 5 wheelchair services in Scotland, some NHS Boards have wheelchairs
provided by more than one service. This cross border activity makes it more difficult to
get a comprehensive picture of the activity within these Health Boards.