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: S6W-00783

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many staff are employed in each of the three specialist endometriosis centres in Scotland, and what the average waiting time is for each.

Question reference: S6W-00782

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether any of the three specialist endometriosis centres in Scotland serve patients outside the NHS board area in which they are situated.

Question reference: S6W-00781

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken in the last six months to reduce endometriosis waiting times, and what the current waiting times are in each NHS board.

The Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan (WHP) will be published shortly and includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Work is already underway by the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme, as part of the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, developing a Pelvic Pain Pathway for Scotland, starting with endometriosis.

In the last year, Endometriosis UK were funded by the Scottish Government to carry out research to identify the challenges to diagnosis in primary care and implementation of the National Institute for Healthcare and Excellence (NICE) guidelines on endometriosis. This work has included updating endometriosis content on NHS Inform and the delivery of a webinar to support primary care to implement the NICE guidelines.

Information on the endometriosis waiting times in each NHS board is not currently available. Public Health Scotland are working with officials and Endometriosis UK to analyse national and board-level data to understand what information is available to assess current waiting times and identify future data needs that could be used to measure improvement in waiting times.

Question reference: S6W-00786

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of Endometriosis in the UK: time for change, APPG on Endometriosis Inquiry Report 2020, and what plans it has to implement its recommendations.

The recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis fall into 4 main categories; a commitment to drive down diagnosis times, to ensure access to appropriate care, awareness and investment in research.

The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of related actions to improve access, for women, to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Question reference: S6W-00787

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have endometriosis, broken down by (a) NHS board area, (b) age cohort and (c) the number who have so-called "deep endometriosis".

Question reference: S6W-00785

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided for endometriosis (a) research, (b) treatment and (c) care in each of the last 14 years, and how much it will allocate to these services in each of the next five years.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how much funding has been provided for endometriosis (b) treatment and (c) care in the last 14 years and how much will be allocated in each of the next five years. This is the responsibility of local NHS boards through their existing NHS budgets.

(a) Research

In recognising the importance of research to improve diagnosis and treatment the CSO has invested £162,000 in a study on laparoscopic treatment of endometriosis based at the University of Edinburgh. It is also funding a £30K Postdoctoral Clinical Lectureship: Precision treatment and drug repurposing to reduce endometriosis-associated pain in women.

Additionally, the CSO contributes financially to United Kingdom-wide research programmes that are run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), which enables researchers in Scotland to apply to those programmes. NIHR have invested £6.8 m to support 4 additional studies on endometriosis, being led from Scotland.

CSO also provides funding (about £66k p.a.) for the NHS Research Scotland Reproductive Health and Childbirth Research Speciality Group to support delivery of high-quality clinical research in Reproductive Health and Childbirth in Scotland, which includes supporting research studies on endometriosis.

Applications looking at the underlying causes, diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through CSO's standard independent peer review process.

Question reference: S6W-00622

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to roll-out the app trialled by the University of Glasgow for people living with long COVID to record their symptoms.

A web-based app has been developed as a means to collect data from those who agree to participate in the COVID in Scotland Study to understand the long-term health of people who have had COVID-19. This research study, led by the University of Glasgow in collaboration with Public Health Scotland and funded by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office, is Scotland-wide. Invitations to take part in the study are sent via SMS to all adults in Scotland who have had a positive COVID-19 test with the app available to those that agree to participate to submit data on their symptoms. This approach using an app to collect data from study participants will be described and evaluated as part of the reporting of this study once completed.

Question reference: S6W-00596

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the COVID-19 vaccination rate for (a) first and (b) second doses has been each week in the Scottish Borders.

The number of first and second doses administered per week to people living in the Scottish Borders has been sourced from Public Health Scotland. These data are from week ending 3 January to 20 June 2021.

Location	Week ending	New dose 1	New dose 2
Scottish Borders	03-01-2021	411	3
Scottish Borders	10-01-2021	2220	27
Scottish Borders	17-01-2021	2575	7
Scottish Borders	24-01-2021	2462	26
Scottish Borders	31-01-2021	4972	38
Scottish Borders	07-02-2021	9887	52
Scottish Borders	14-02-2021	10475	360
Scottish Borders	21-02-2021	1818	444
Scottish Borders	28-02-2021	4364	858
Scottish Borders	07-03-2021	4491	1611
Scottish Borders	14-03-2021	223	2722
Scottish Borders	21-03-2021	4088	3349
Scottish Borders	28-03-2021	3565	2236
Scottish Borders	04-04-2021	1258	3995
Scottish Borders	11-04-2021	4492	3750
Scottish Borders	18-04-2021	5995	7412
Scottish Borders	25-04-2021	256	7169
Scottish Borders	02-05-2021	154	2143
Scottish Borders	09-05-2021	1653	1326
Scottish Borders	16-05-2021	2341	3717
Scottish Borders	23-05-2021	3167	4252
Scottish Borders	30-05-2021	949	4613
Scottish Borders	06-06-2021	2979	5140
Scottish Borders	13-06-2021	2297	2910
Scottish Borders	20-06-2021	1511	5116
Scottish Borders	22-06-2021	1966	81

Question reference: S6W-00534

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will extend the window for 18- to 29-year-olds to register for a COVID-19 vaccination appointment.

Self-registration for 18–29 year olds closed on 11 June 2021. The online portal was part of the Scottish Government’s measures to widen the accessibility of vaccine appointments, and was extended for another week, on top of the original three week window. 40% of the young people aged 18-29 who were still to be vaccinated, self-registered on our online portal.

The 18-29 year olds who did not register online, are being scheduled for an appointment on the system this week, and letters are coming out over this week and next. However, to give advanced sight of appointments online, we are launching an appointment checker on NHS Inform to help people view their pending appointments. This will help those people, like students, who may have moved away from their registered GP term time address. This will also help them view their offered appointment earlier and chose to reschedule to fit with their work and life.

Question reference: S6F-00164

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to curb the decline of iconic woodland bird species in Scotland.