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 1153 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Emma Harper
Healthcare is so wide ranging that there is loads that we could cover today. I am interested in community pharmacy, which is valuable, and pharmacy first is amazing. The feedback that I have had from community pharmacies is that they sometimes feel undervalued in their work. I am interested to know whether data has been gathered on pathways for referral to pharmacy first and whether pathways are appropriate.
Community pharmacies can be great at things such as checking inhaler technique or checking that people who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma have the right inhaler, which helps to keep them out of hospital. That is a matter of people having the right inhaler and the right technique for them.
Community pharmacies should be valued, but do we track whether appropriate referrals are made?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Sometimes, people might not be aware of it, so they might go to the emergency department instead of phoning 111, because they just assume they will not be able to communicate. If we make people more aware of the fact that there is this interpreting ability with 111, that is a good thing.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Good morning. Thanks for coming today. You mentioned the IVR—the interactive voice response. People whose first or preferred language isnae English can phone up. Do you monitor how many calls are made by people whose first language isnae English or Scots? I am reading here that there is the ability to interpret Polish, Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Romanian, Süryani and Ukrainian. Do you monitor how many calls are made by people whose first language isnae English?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
We have talked a lot about distress brief interventions, breathing space and the mental health hub, and we know that a lot of work has been done to reduce stigma around mental health so that people feel that it is okay to reach out. How has Covid impacted the work to direct people to breathing space, DBIs and the mental health hub?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Can I ask a final question, convener?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
I am thinking about liaison with not just the police but the fire service. I am sure that that is part of on-going work. I am also interested in the work that is done to engage with people who use drugs and alcohol harmfully, and to reduce the stigma. Are tackling or addressing stigma and the language that we use part of the continuing professional development that is provided for Scottish Ambulance Service staff?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
I will wait and bring the issue up later, because I think that it will be worth a letter. It concerns maternity services and delivering babies in ambulances in rural areas, for instance. I can pick that up later.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Does NHS 24 use a local information system for Scotland—ALISS—to direct folk to third sector organisations that provide help and support with regard to mental health issues, for instance? Is using ALISS or directing people to local third sector services using whatever apps are available locally part of the upstreaming and downstreaming plan?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Good morning. You mentioned falls earlier. I am just looking at the “Our 2030 Strategy” document, which says that 12 per cent of ambulance call-outs are for somebody who has fallen, so there is work being done to look at that. However, 10 per cent of call-outs are for patients with respiratory difficulties such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—COPD—exacerbation. As a co-convener of the cross-party group on lung health, I am interested in what work is being done to help to support the respiratory patients, for instance, because they might need not an admission but a referral to an onward pathway for better management of their COPD.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Emma Harper
Do you monitor situations in which someone who has a mental health emergency or an urgent need of that kind is engaged with by the police rather than by the Ambulance Service? Do you track occasions on which the police, rather than ambulance crew, escort someone to the emergency department?