The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 728 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Janis Heaney wants to come in.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you. I think that Lorraine wants to come in.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
If we have time, I would like to bring in Jane-Claire Judson.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Good morning to the panel. I want to ask about pathways for long Covid sufferers.
The committee previously took evidence from long Covid sufferers who expressed their concern that the pathways did not exist or, if they existed, they were not working. You may have seen that, in the previous evidence session, we heard from Jane-Claire Judson from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, which has assistance available. She said that it would love to be overwhelmed with patients, but it has not received them because of a lack of signposting. Amy Small said that she felt that those networks do not exist in Scotland and that we do not have long Covid clinics, which exist south of the border.
Do you accept that there is an issue with pathways not existing or not operating properly? What can be done to fix that?
Does Manira Ahmad want to kick off?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Good morning. In case of any conflict of interests, I should say that I am registered as a patient with Dr Shackles’s practice. By the grace of God, I have not troubled him or his colleagues very much so far.
I want to ask about the level of demand for long Covid treatment. We believe that there are 175,000 long Covid sufferers in Scotland, and I am interested in exploring whether there is enough capacity in the system for that level of demand. Clearly, some people will not come forward to look for support, but is there capacity in the system to support them if they do?
Is there a specific issue with inequalities? Are particular groups more likely to be affected—for example, women rather than men, or people who have disabilities—and do they therefore require additional support?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you, Dr Taylor. I know that Lorraine Crothers wants to come in, but I want to follow up on one—quite relevant—point. You have obviously developed a specialism in that particular field. Are you the only person in Scotland who has that level of specialism or are there others?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
Did you want to come back in briefly, Dr Taylor?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
I think that one of my colleagues will ask about the workforce shortly. I go to Professor Donaldson.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
I have a follow-up question for Janis Heaney. Are there plans to develop standardised guidance for use across all NHS boards in Scotland? If so, when is that likely to be in place?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Murdo Fraser
I am conscious that I did not let in Linda Currie. Do you want to come in?