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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-03175

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has intervened to direct NHS Fife and the relevant education authorities to permit schools to issue basic medication, such as paracetamol and ibuprofen, without the need for a GP prescription, in light of reports that primary care is struggling in NHS Fife.

Question reference: S6W-25404

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address cardiology waiting lists, in light of reported statistics showing that waiting lists for outpatient cardiology appointments are the longest on record.

We recognise the scale and impact of heart disease across Scotland and have set out our strategic direction to address this in our 2021 Heart Disease Action Plan. This includes actions to ensure that people with suspected heart disease have timely and equitable access to diagnosis, treatment and care.

We are making progress in the delivery of these actions including the development of nationally agreed pathways and ensuring the effective use of data to drive improvements.

We expect Health Boards’ 2024-25 annual delivery plans (due March) to clearly set out how they will increase productivity and reduce waiting times across all inpatient, day-case, outpatient specialities.

Question reference: S6W-25405

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address waiting lists for echocardiograms, in light of reported statistics showing that fewer than three in 10 people are being seen within six weeks.

The Heart Disease Action Plan recognises the need to ensure timely and equitable access to diagnostics, including echocardiography. We remain committed to supporting Boards to target resources to reduce waiting times through service innovation and redesign.

This includes the Centre for Sustainable Delivery's (CfSD) Accelerated National Innovation Adoption Pathway (ANIA) which focuses on using technology to fast-track proven innovations into the healthcare frontline that will improve patient outcomes.

As part of this work, CfSD is currently considering the roll out of innovations that optimise delivery of the heart failure diagnostic pathway, in which access to echocardiography is an important component.

Question reference: S6W-25403

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the current vacancy rate is for cardiac physiologists in NHS Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-25607

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what cost (a) savings and (b) avoidance it has identified since the implementation of Scan4Safety in Scotland.

The NHSScotland Scan For Safety Programme was established to provide rapid electronic traceability for high-risk implantable medical devices; linking patients to the medical devices used in their care, thus improving patient safety and fulfilling a key theme from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Review and a future regulatory requirement. In addition, the improved medical device data will provide a patient implant record and with appropriate safeguards provide an opportunity to improve our knowledge of real world medical device outcomes.

Implementation of NHS Scotland Scan for Safety has now been successfully completed in four specialties within two Health Boards and the Programme Team is currently engaging with the local Board teams to measure the benefits being realised in these Health Board areas. The benefits to be realised over time will cover areas such as patient safety, operational efficiency and clinical productivity. While the level of each benefit will depend on the Health Board implementing scanning technology across all affected specialties within a Board area, the Programme Team will work closely with each Board to ensure the identified benefits are maximised as much as possible between now and programme closure in March 2026.

Since the rollout of the National Inventory Management System (IMS)(a pre-cursor in supporting rollout of the Scan for Safety Programme), across all Health Boards in March 2023, data is now available across all Health Boards which suggests savings may be made regarding stock management in each Board area. This data will be validated with each Health Board as part of the Scan for Safety Programme implementation activity, due to be completed by March 2026. The level of savings (or avoidance) will vary in each Board. These benefits will be aggregated at a national level in due course and reported through to the National Programme Board as implementation progresses. Some benefits, such as the digital tracking of medical devices in the event of a recall, can only be realised and verified if a recall notice is received and this may not happen during the lifecycle of the programme.

Question reference: S6W-25604

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to (a) build on the progress from the Scan4Safety programme and (b) implement a single national transferable patient record.

The NHS Scotland Scan for Safety Programme is focused on improving traceability and patient outcomes for high risk implantable medical devices. The Programme has established pilot sites in NHS Lothian and NHS Golden Jubilee with both sites implementing Point of Care data capture in key specialities.

NHS Western Isles will commence implementation of Scan for Safety in March 2024. Work is underway to confirm further NHS Boards for roll-out in financial year 2024-25. It is planned at present to implement Scan for Safety across territorial boards by the end of March 2026.

The Scottish Government recently provided details of plans connected to electronic patient records to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee – see Electronic patient record | Scottish Parliament Website

Question reference: S6W-25605

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of its funding plans to complete the roll-out of the Scan4Safety programme in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-25606

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to collaborate with other UK nations on the adoption of national standards for healthcare interoperability, including Scan4Saftey and sharing patient records where appropriate.

The Scottish Government is collaborating with four nations partners on the adoption of data standards and has representation on various UK-level groups. Through our Data Strategy for Health and Social Care we have committed to setting out the preferred standards for use across the sector to facilitate interoperability and the sharing of patient records. In progressing this aim we have recently engaged with English and Welsh colleagues on their approach to adopting and publishing standards.

Question reference: S6W-25163

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-24594 by Jenny Gilruth on 29 January 2024, whether it will provide the information requested regarding for what reason, and based on what evidence, it has decided to set the target of two hours of physical education each school week for primary school children as opposed to a greater or lesser amount of exercise.

The Scottish Government has been committed to ensuring that all children in primary school receive at least two hours of physical education (PE) each school week since 2011. Our decision to set a target of two hours of PE for primary school children was prompted by recommendations made by the National Physical Activity Task Force which recommended “taking part in at least two hours of quality physical education classes a week and gaining the appropriate movement and behavioural skills needed for an active life”.

Question reference: S6W-25165

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how its reported two-year freeze in capital expenditure for the NHS will impact on its NHS Recovery Plan target of achieving 40,000 additional inpatient and day cases seen in National Treatment Centres by 2025-26.

The National Treatment Centres (NTCs) Programme is the single biggest increase in planned care capacity ever created in NHS Scotland. Five new National Treatment Centres (NTCs) will be opened by 2024 at Golden Jubilee (Phase 1 and 2), NTC Fife, NTC Highland and NTC Forth Valley. Combined these centres will have eight orthopaedic theatres; an inpatient/day-case ward; three endoscopy rooms and two general theatres.

As a result of the almost 10% cut in our capital budget from the UK Government, we are having to revise our pipeline of infrastructure investment and we do not expect National Treatment Centres in Ayrshire and Arran, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Tayside to be progressed in the short to medium term. The figure of 40,000 additional activities from the 2021 recovery plan is dependent on all National Treatment Centres in development being operational, therefore we expect the additional annual activity from the programme to be 20,000 from 2024-25.