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-24702

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 12 August 2019
Current Status: Answer expected on 9 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Reform Scotland briefing, Closing the early years gap, which states that 50% of children are not guaranteed two years of funded early years education, what action it is taking to remedy this.

Question reference: S5W-24666

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 August 2019
Current Status: Answer expected on 5 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport approved the payment of £11.6 million made by NHS Lothian to Integrated Health Solutions Lothian to facilitate resolution of issues at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services project; what other options were considered, and who it informed of the existence of the payment following the Scottish Government's approval in August 2018.

Question reference: S5W-24412

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 22 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 8 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time is for a hysterectomy operation, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S5W-24298

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 7 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release of 9 July 2019, Barriers to employment in early learning and childcare: EQIA, how many of the 11,000 additional workers required for the sector have so far been recruited through the workforce expansion project.

As set out in the latest Delivery Progress report published by the Improvement Service, 2,173 of the 9,251 full time equivalent additional Local Authority staff had been recruited by 30 April 2019. The report is available at http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/documents/ELC/elc-delivery-progress-report-june-19.pdf

Local authorities continue to refine their plans for the Early Learning and Childcare expansion and data updating forecasts about the number of additional Local Authority staff required, will be collected in September 2019. It is expected that this will change the forecast number of additional Local Authority staff required to deliver the expansion.

Question reference: S5W-24478

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 7 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-24217 by Kevin Stewart on 15 July 2019, whether it will provide a breakdown of the number of social rent homes that have (a) been completed and (b) started construction by local authority area.

Our published annual Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) Outturn Reports include tables showing a breakdown of approvals, site starts and completions by local authority area. Please see links to the Outturn Reports for 2016-17 and 2017-18. Tables 4 and 5 in each document set out the information you require:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/affordable-housing-supply-programme-out-turn-report-2016-2017/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/affordable-housing-supply-programme-out-turn-report-2017-2018/

As the outturn Report for 2018-19 will not be published until late in 2019, the following tables show the number of site starts and completions by local authority:

Site starts in 2018-19

Council	Number of site starts
Aberdeenshire	93
Angus	77
Argyll & Bute	334
City of Aberdeen	226
Clackmannanshire	4
Dumfries & Galloway	136
Dundee	97
East Ayrshire	197
East Dunbartonshire	126
East Lothian	215
East Renfrewshire	32
Edinburgh	716
Falkirk	204
Fife	268
Glasgow (inc. GHA)	847
Highland	444
Inverclyde	464
Midlothian	231
Moray	128
North Ayrshire	294
North Lanarkshire	299
Orkney Islands	9
Perth & Kinross	145
Renfrewshire	246
Scottish Borders	226
Shetland	0
South Ayrshire	104
South Lanarkshire	437
Stirling	42
West Dunbartonshire	64
West Lothian	253
Western Isles	14
Total	6,972

Completions in 2018-19

Council	Number of completions
Aberdeenshire	148
Angus	138
Argyll & Bute	91
City of Aberdeen	202
Clackmannanshire	55
Dumfries & Galloway	56
Dundee	112
East Ayrshire	80
East Dunbartonshire	60
East Lothian	110
East Renfrewshire	33
Edinburgh	439
Falkirk	155
Fife	407
Glasgow (inc. GHA)	1,022
Highland	421
Inverclyde	92
Midlothian	185
Moray	90
North Ayrshire	270
North Lanarkshire	359
Orkney Islands	29
Perth & Kinross	169
Renfrewshire	133
Scottish Borders	209
Shetland	16
South Ayrshire	156
South Lanarkshire	488
Stirling	83
West Dunbartonshire	145
West Lothian	603
Western Isles	17
Total	6,573

Question reference: S5W-24396

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what questions are being asked in the (a) Scottish Health Survey and (b) Health and Wellbeing Census.

a) The Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) was established in 1995 and repeated in 1998 and 2003. It has been carried out annually since 2008.

There are two versions of the survey each year, version A and version B. Version A accounts for around 2/3 rd of the sample and includes a set of core questions and a set of modules on specific health conditions that rotate in and out of the survey. Version B accounts for the remaining 1/3 rd of the sample and includes the core questions and a biological measures module.

Full copies of the questionnaires used in SHeS are included in the appendix of the technical report for each corresponding year, available here:

https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/scottish-health-survey/Publications

The 2018 Scottish Health Survey is due to be published in September 2019. A report on questionnaire changes that were made from 2018 onwards is available here: https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0053/00537370.pdf

b) The Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Census questionnaire is still in the process of being developed and will ask questions that cover the following topics/themes against the SHANARRI indicators (Safe, Healthy, Active, Nurtured, Achieving, Responsible, Respected and Included).

As the HWB Census is going to be asked of children from Primary 5 to Secondary 6 a number of questionnaires are in the process of being finalised, and each questionnaire is designed to include questions that are age/stage appropriate. For example, some topics/themes will only be asked of older children (e.g. mental health and substance use will only be asked of Secondary 2 pupils upwards, and sexual health questions will only be asked of Secondary 4 pupils and upwards).

Question reference: S5W-24372

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings it has had with academics at Glasgow Caledonian University following its research indicating a 10-fold increase in HIV infection among drug users in Glasgow.

I note that the research referred to examined the causes of the outbreak of HIV amongst people who inject drugs in Glasgow, which was identified in 2015. It was the product of collaboration between Glasgow Caledonian University, Health Protection Scotland, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Scottish Government officials have well-established working relationships with several authors of the paper, including colleagues from each of the above organisations.

I visited the Brownlee clinic, which is leading the medical response to this outbreak, in November 2018 and visited Waverley Care’s street support team, which works to provide treatment support and testing, in July 2019.

Question reference: S5W-24373

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 August 2019

The number of needles distributed to drugs users in Glasgow in; (a) 2015-16 can be found at
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2017-06-13/2017-06-13-IEP-Report.pdf ;

(b) 2016-17 can be found at
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2018-08-07/2018-08-07-IEP-Report.pdf .

The data for 2017-18 and 2018-19 will be published by Information Services Division in due course.

Question reference: S5W-24310

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 6 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it encourages the NHS to increase the use of technology in care systems to improve services, and what resources and funding it provides.

Scotland's Digital Health and Care Strategy recognises the benefits that technology can have in supporting the NHS to improve services.
The Scottish Government invests around £89m each year to implement a range of improvements including; provision of national GP IT systems to replace ageing local systems, a modern replacement for the Community Health Index and Child Health Systems and a national contract with Microsoft which will ensure that all boards have access to the latest technologies to support modern working practices and ensure they maintain cyber resilience.

As part of that, the Scottish Government's Technology Enabled Care Programme has also seen significant success in implementing technology to support more person-centred care. This includes for example the implementation of the Attend Anywhere Video Consultation Platform (also known as NHS Near Me) as well as the scale up in the use of the Home and Mobile Health Monitoring system FLORENCE which supports self-management of conditions such as high blood pressure using SMS Text Messaging.

Question reference: S5W-24437

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 22 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the impact of social prescribing that focuses on sport and physical activity and its link to technology.

The use of social prescribing is an emerging practice to complement healthcare provision, so that people can make informed choices about their care in line with their preferences.

The Scottish Government supports all efforts to support and encourage people to take part in sport and physical activity, and looks forward to seeing evidence as it develops on how social prescribing initiatives can contribute to this goal.