Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
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.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
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.
Search by MSP
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.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
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.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
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:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
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.
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Displaying 1148 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I am well aware of this petition; I was at the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee meeting at which it was presented by the petitioners, and I know that other members in the room were there, too. I know the history behind it, and I am keen that we do not lose sight of rural health and social care needs and that we hear people’s voices.
The example that I have before me is the experience of people in Stranraer. A key issue that the petitioner has been trying to raise for 20 years now relates to the fact that NHS Dumfries and Galloway is part of the south-east cancer network and that, as a result, patients in the south-west of Scotland—which isnae in the east of Scotland—end up having cancer treatment in Edinburgh instead of at the closest cancer centre for radiotherapy, which would be in Glasgow. It means that, instead of just going up the road to Glasgow, people who are undergoing radiotherapy or other cancer treatment have to travel a distance that is pretty hefty for them.
My understanding is that, for 20 years now, Dr Gordon Baird, who is a retired GP and former chief medical officer at the Galloway community hospital, has been trying to look at ways in which we can hear the voices of people who live in remote and rural parts of Scotland, particularly Dumfries and Galloway—although, as we can see from the other petitions, the issue goes wider than that to, for example, Caithness. The question is how we support what is best for patients; it is not about telling them, “You’ll get your treatment where we tell you,” but about giving them the best opportunity to get the best care where they choose and reducing the issue of travel.
Currently, the people in question are means tested for their travel, whereas those in other parts of Scotland are not and get their care without having to cough up from their own finances. That is a health inequality issue, too—means testing people for their care should not be happening.
There are other issues regarding maternity services. I know that a review of the midwifery-led service in Galloway is happening right now because no baby has been delivered in Stranraer for four years. That is similar to the issue at Dr Gray’s hospital, which has been raised in the chamber of Parliament on a number of occasions.
11:30My concern is that, for 20 years, little progress has been made to hear the voices of the people who live in remote and rural areas, whether that is in the area that NHS Dumfries and Galloway covers or more widely. If we in the committee do not keep the petition open and hear from witnesses, I am concerned that we might lose sight of what the real issues are for people in remote and rural areas.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport said that he did not want to
“clutter a landscape”
that
“already has a fair bit of bureaucracy around it”—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 17 January 2023; c 14.]
through the organisations, agencies and institutions that we already have. I am aware that the establishment of an agency is not the route that the cabinet secretary wants to take. I suppose that the big issue is how we ensure that rural voices are heard. We have raised the issue in debates and through questions in the chamber, but how do we get rural voices heard if we do not continue to pursue evidence taking?
I know that the petition calls for the establishment of an agency. I need to understand whether we need the petitioner to submit a new petition that addresses the specific issues with remote and rural healthcare rather than calling for an agency.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I am interested in the panel’s thoughts regarding the patient safety commissioner having sufficient powers to bring about improvements in patient safety. We already have the Scottish patient safety programme, which has been widened to look at maternity and neonatal primary care, paediatrics and medicines. I was part of the surgical safety stuff when I worked in the operating theatre in California, implementing the surgical safety checklist and things like that. Will the patient safety commissioner have enough powers to make safety improvements?
I do not have anybody in particular in mind.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I have a quick question. Looking at the report on your first 100 days, I see that concerns have been raised about electroconvulsive therapy and Covid vaccination. I am the co-convener of the cross-party group on mental health, and the ECT issue has come up with us, as well. There is a lot of fake news out there about Covid vaccines. Will your role help with concerns where evidence issues need to be addressed? Will it combat fake news, for instance?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
Earlier, you talked about the value of your independence, and you are talking about listening to people and hearing their concerns. Are you already finding that people are engaged with and have trust in the role of patient safety commissioner for England that has been created?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
In a previous evidence session, one of our panellists spoke about the Health and Safety Executive, enforcement orders and fines, and the patient safety commissioner’s potentially having those sorts of powers. Do you have any thoughts or opinions on whether the patient safety commissioner should be able to act in that way?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I welcome the witnesses to the Scottish Parliament—it is good to have you here. I am interested in how your remit and role compare with the proposed remit of the patient safety commissioner for Scotland, which seems to be a bit wider. Do you have an opinion on whether there would be any benefits or drawbacks of the remit being a bit different in Scotland? Has your remit given you enough to work on, without considering wider issues?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Emma Harper
I did not think that I would be talking about roads in Dumfries and Galloway—the A75 and the A77—at a meeting of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, but the issue is relevant to the many challenges with recruitment and retention.
We must remember that we have the Scottish graduate entry medicine programme. It would be really good to hear how that is working. What is the retention level? Where is that programme doing well? That is part of it. There are also programmes for trained general nurses to become midwives and vice versa, although that is not happening in my part of the South Scotland region because Dumfries and Galloway was not selected for the dual training approach.
Work is being taken forward, but it will not be an overnight fix. I support doing whatever we need to do to look at rural health and social care.
