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-21110

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 7 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the ISD report, Body Mass Index of Primary 1 Children in Scotland School Year 2017/18, which records an increase in the overweight and obesity gap between children from rich and poor backgrounds, and how the diet and healthy weight delivery plan will aim to alleviate this.

Health inequalities are a symptom of wider social inequalities. That is why the Scottish Government is taking action to address underlying causes, including ending poverty, fair wages, supporting families, and improving our physical and social environments.

We are also reforming public health. In June 2018, with COSLA, we published Public Health Priorities for Scotland. Creating a Scotland where we all eat well and have a healthy weight and level of physical activity is one of these six interlinked priorities. In 2019 we will establish of a new national public health body, which will have a leading role in supporting work to tackle health inequalities.

The Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan is clear in its ambition to significantly reduce diet related health inequalities. The wide range of actions includes population level measures and targeted interventions such as:

- restricting the in-store marketing and promotion of foods high in fat, salt and sugar but with little or no nutritional value in order to reduce the public health harm associated with poor diet.

- Food Standards Scotland’s Out of Home strategy which includes better information for consumers, currently out for consultation.

- Early intervention and targeted support for children, young people and families delivered by Health Boards and their partners to help them to achieve a healthy diet and weight.

The Public Health Priorities can be accessed here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-public-health-priorities/pages/0/

The Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan can be accessed here: www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781787810556 .

Question reference: S5W-20507

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the withdrawal of services by Healthcare Environmental Services, whether it will detail its contingency plan to ensure that clinical waste is disposed of safely, and where the alternative storage, collection and treatment services have been procured from.

Due to the withdrawal of services by Healthcare Environmental Services Ltd, interim contingency arrangements have been put in place to ensure NHS Scotland services to the public are maintained. These arrangements, procured centrally by NHS National Services Scotland, for the NHS across Scotland, were initiated on 7 December 2018.

Services are being provided by around 15 companies under temporary contracts. Collection of waste from NHSScotland priority sites (large hospitals) is being undertaken by three licensed waste carriers covering the whole of Scotland. These are - Northwards Ltd, John Mitchell Haulage (Grangemouth) Ltd and W H Malcolm (Linwood) Ltd. Contracts are in place with specialist companies to provide community collections from smaller sites, including GPs and Community Pharmacists.

In total there are over 4,000 community sites being supported. Waste is collected and transported directly to authorised (licence or permitted) facilities in Scotland and England.

Question reference: S5W-21123

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Glasgow endometriosis centre has been allocated to fund clinical nurse specialists, and how many hours per role this funds.

Question reference: S5W-20935

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many hours of dedicated pelvic pain management is provided to support people with (a) endometriosis and (b) other pelvic pain conditions, broken down by NHS board.

This information regarding endometriosis and other pelvic pain conditions is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government has commissioned the development of a Core Minimum Dataset (CMD) to be collected by all specialist pain services, and a series of Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs).

These will be evidence-based, use routinely-collected data where possible, and have been subject to two consultation exercises. We are currently working with ISD to establish methods of integrating the necessary data collection into NHS IT systems, with a view to piloting this as soon as this is ready.

Once the data from CMD and QPIs are available, we will be able to report baseline and outcome characteristics of patients attending pain services (including cause and severity of pain, and its impact); and the nature and quality of service provision. This will include people with endometriosis and other pelvic pain conditions where they are seen by a specialist pain service but not any that are being treated by gynaecologists out with the pain service.

We will also be able to compare services between regions and changes over time, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of service improvement initiatives. Further information is available at the NHS Research Scotland Website: http://www.nhsresearchscotland.org.uk/research-areas/pain/sub-page-2

Question reference: S5W-20933

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Glasgow endometriosis centre has been allocated to fund consultants dedicated in (a) gynaecology, (b) pain management, (c) colorectal surgery and (d) urology, and how many hours per role this funds.

The West of Scotland dedicated BSGE Accredited Severe Endometriosis Service is expected to be up and running from April 2019 and is being funded through local NHS Health Boards. It will bring together work that was previously dispersed across different sites. The following table sets out the planned uplift from existing services, as well as additional funds that will enable supporting surgical support to ring fence capacity, which will be used to establish this centre.

	Funding	Hours
Gynaecology	Uplift from existing services	75 hours	2.0 wte
Pain Management	Uplift from existing services
Colorectal	£60,000	18.5 hours	0.5 wte
Urology	£12,600	3.5 hours	0.10

Question reference: S5W-20936

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many trained specialist endometriosis surgeons there are, broken down by NHS board, and how many of their hours are allocated specifically to endometriosis care and surgery.

There are two specialist centres open in Edinburgh (based at the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal) and in Aberdeen (Royal Infirmary). A specialist centre in the West of Scotland is expected to be operational by April 2019. It is the responsibility of local NHS Boards to ensure patients are able to access the appropriate care for endometriosis, including ensuring appropriate access to trained specialist surgeons is in place. Scottish Government does hold this information.

Question reference: S5W-20934

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much operating theatre time has been allocated to the Glasgow endometriosis centre, and how many (a) weekly and (b) monthly operations this will cover.

Question reference: S5W-21132

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 1 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many people have alopecia, broken down by (a) age group, (b) gender and (c) NHS board.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. However, the Scottish Burden of Disease project, in producing estimates of the overall prevalence of skin and subcutaneous diseases in Scotland, has considered a number of conditions/diseases including alopecia. Further information is available from the link below: https://www.scotpho.org.uk/media/1775/sbod2016-skindiseases.pdf

Question reference: S5O-02865

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many school pupils have died by suicide in the last five years and what action it has taken in response to this.

Question reference: S5W-20924

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 11 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the research by Edinburgh Napier University regarding the lifestyle of healthcare workers and the reported potential negative impact of social care working conditions and pay on their lifestyles.

We value our social care workforce and are committed to raising the status of social care as a profession. That is why we have enabled, for the first time, adult care workers in Scotland to be paid the real Living Wage from October 2016, a move which is benefiting up to 40,000 people in the social services sector, and have provided resource over the last two years to cover the extension of the real Living Wage to sleepover hours during 2018-19.

We are also working with COSLA, care providers and other partners to improve careers and workforce planning for this trained and dedicated workforce under the national Health and Social Care Workforce Plan.

Employers have a duty of care to protect the health and safety of their workers. It is also in their interests to invest in promoting the health and wellbeing of their employees.