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: S6O-01045

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of its international offices.

Question reference: S6O-00987

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is progressing with the replacement of unsafe cladding on tall buildings.

Question reference: S6O-00949

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to make best use of their cultural attractions and facilities.

Question reference: S6W-06772

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve awareness of brain tumour symptoms.

We welcomed the opportunity to participate in the first Less Survivable Cancers Awareness Day and joined the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce in raising the profile of less survivable cancers, including neurological cancers, through our video of support on twitter.

We know that the earlier cancer is detected the greater the chance of survival, this is particularly important across rapidly-advancing diseases like the less survivable cancers, which include brain tumours. Our Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme adopts a whole-systems approach to diagnosing and treating cancer as early as possible. This £44m programme received an additional £20m in August 2021 and is being developed and supported by a new Early Cancer Diagnosis Programme Board.

Scotland’s first three Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (ECDC) are now live in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Fife. These Centres provide primary care with a new referral route for patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer (including weight loss, fatigue and nausea), which do not meet Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer for specific cancer types, including brain tumours.

Question reference: S6W-06768

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the number of clinical nurse specialists who specialise in brain tumours, and what steps NHS Scotland is taking to ensure that all brain tumour patients have access to a named clinical nurse specialist.

Information on the number of brain tumour specialist nurses is not held centrally.

As part of the National Cancer Plan, we are providing up to £2.5 million to NHS boards to support 12 pilot programmes across Scotland to deliver a single point of contact for cancer patients. These points of contact will support patients throughout their journey to discuss questions or anxieties related to their clinical care from the point of diagnosis.

Question reference: S6W-06973

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take in response to reports that over 240,000 calls to the NHS 24 111 number were unanswered between September 2021 and January 2022, which represents an average of over 48,000 calls per month.

NHS 24 aims to provide high standards of care and despite the substantial increase in demand placed on the Service by the outbreak of COVID-19, NHS 24 continues to provide a highly effective, safe triage system to the people of Scotland.

As a result of this increased demand, and changes to service delivery, we have increased funding to NHS 24 by over £20m this year for additional recruitment and the addition of a new call centre in Dundee, which opened in December 2021.

This is supporting the additional recruitment of 575 full time equivalent call handlers and 140 full time equivalent clinicians to date, including through the recently established 24/7 mental health hub.

Calls to the 111 Service can be abandoned for a variety of reasons, including telephony providers ending calls after a period of time or patients choosing to end the call after being connected and hearing the options available to them. These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform, or contacting another area of the health service better placed to meet their needs.

NHS 24 is undertaking a piece of work to evaluate abandoned calls and determine how many of these callers are accessing other advice/support as directed and how many are re-dialling the Service after their call has been cut off by telephony providers or they have hung up the call. This will involve working closely with telephony provider and significant engagement with callers to the Service and will help the Service reduce instances of abandoned calls.

Question reference: S6W-06767

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether Healthcare Improvement Scotland is currently reviewing the use of Palforzia for children with peanut allergies; if so, what the anticipated timescale is for (a) it to produce its recommendations and (b) these to be implemented by NHS Scotland, and, if not, whether such a review will be under taken as a priority in order give children in Scotland access to this treatment, in light of it being available in England and Wales.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has advised that it is in discussions with the manufacturer of Palforzia ® , Aimmune Therapeutics UK Limited, regarding their plans for a submission to the SMC’s appraisal process. The decision to make a submission, and the timing of that submission, are entirely for the manufacturer to make. Information on SMC timelines and submission scheduling can be found here . Once the manufacturer has provided the Palforzia ® submission to the SMC, information on the specific timelines for this assessment will be available via the search facility available on the home page of the SMC’s website here . After a submission is received and scheduled for review by the SMC, the resulting advice is e published and takes effect for NHS Scotland from the month following the review meeting.

As soon as the medicine is submitted to the SMC for appraisal, Health Boards have procedures in place using the Peer Approved Clinical System “PACS Tier Two” process which provides an opportunity for doctors, on a case by case basis for individual patients, to request the use of the medicine in advance of the SMC completing the appraisal process and issuing its advice.

Question reference: S6W-06287

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 11 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05441 by Ben Macpherson on 28 February 2022, whether it will clarify the eligibility of individuals for the Adult Disability Payment as they reach retirement age, in light of the reference on its website to this form of assistance being for individuals from the age of 16 to state pension age.

The answer to question S6W-05441 accurately reflects the Scottish Government’s position on the eligibility of individuals for Adult Disability Payment in relation to state pension age. The reference in ‘Adult Disability Payment Q&A’, available at Adult Disability Payment Q&A , relates to new applications for Adult Disability Payment, which can only be made by individuals between 16 years old and state pension age.

Question reference: S6W-06769

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 8 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment Public Health Scotland has made of the reported backlog in the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumours as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what steps are being taken to address this.

The cancer pathology dashboard hosted on the COVID-19 wider impacts tool is Public Health Scotland’s rapid assessment of how many cancer diagnoses have been made compared to 2019 https://scotland.shinyapps.io/phs-covid-wider-impact/ .

However, we know that many Central Nervous System (CNS) tumours are not diagnosed by pathology and the Scottish Cancer Registry provides the gold standard measure of new cancer diagnoses. PHS will report on 2020 incidence in April of this year. The Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dashboard (on the same site) is Public Health Scotland’s assessment of SACT, and CNS tumour treatment is available on that; and Public Health Scotland’s radiotherapy data is returned to NHS Digital, where they are presented on a dashboard.

Question reference: S6W-06275

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 25 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether provision has been made in the new devolved disability benefits system to allow disabled people to relocate between nations of the UK and maintain their benefit eligibility.

The Scottish Government has been working with counterparts at both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland to ensure any person moving to or from Scotland who is in receipt of disability benefits can do so without disruption to their benefits.

The Disability Assistance for Children and Young People (Scotland) Regulations 2021 allow a person moving from Scotland to the rest of the UK to retain their benefit entitlement for up to 13 weeks. This is to allow time for the person moving to establish a new entitlement in the country they are settling in. We understand that the intention of other UK administrations is to mirror this arrangement.

The Scottish Government is also working with DWP to ensure anyone coming to Scotland from the rest of the UK will have the Scottish equivalent of their existing benefit awarded automatically, without a need to apply. However, it is our understanding that the DWP and the Department for Communities will require anyone moving from Scotland to these administrations to submit a new application before they can be considered for award of the equivalent disability benefit in the rest of the UK.