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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: S6W-14160

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent in each year on its Turas platform since it was launched, including design and implementation costs.

Question reference: S6W-14156

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to develop communities of practice and learning networks, so that staff can share learning about the uses of technology within the health and care sector.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing digital skills for all staff across health and care, and ensuring that we embed digital leadership at all levels to enable digital service transformation. As part of our commitments in the Digital Health and Care Strategy’s Delivery Plan 2022-23 we are developing an Action Plan to articulate the range of learning and development opportunities more clearly, identify gaps and document outcomes. The Digital Health and Care Leadership Programme led by NHS Education for Scotland and sponsored by the Scottish Government supports staff to influence digital health and care in their organisations through strategic leadership, opportunities for learning, collaborating, and networking with others to maximise the use of technology to benefit service delivery within their organisations. The Programme is open to staff in NHS Scotland, social care, housing and the third sector, and will increase capacity in digital leadership, encouraging innovation in services and cross-organisation learning and development.

In addition, we actively contribute to sector events that facilitate information sharing, promote good practice, and encourage learning. For example, the DigiFest programme of events and conference is aimed specifically at those working to deliver digitally enabled services in health, housing, and social care. This year’s programme in October to November 2022 featured a range of sessions highlighting digital developments in health, social care and housing including a focus on available resources and learning networks supporting knowledge and learning among staff.

Question reference: S6W-14164

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to enhance industry networks and clusters around digital health and care.

The Scottish Government supports, and participates in, The Life Sciences Scotland Industry Leadership Group - Life Sciences Scotland . This includes a specific sub-group focusing on Digital and Data, chaired by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (the DHI). The DHI are funded by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council to act as the interface between academia, industry and our health & care services around digital health and care and run several innovation clusters on our behalf. See Innovation Clusters | Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (dhi-scotland.com) for information.

Question reference: S6W-14163

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has invested in (a) the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) (b) Innovation Centres other than DHI, (c) The Scotland 5G Centre, (d) the cyber resilience sector, (e) the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and (f) Public Health Scotland to ensure that Scotland gets maximum benefit from digital health and care.

Our commitment in the Digital Health and Care Strategy is to work with these organisations, and others, to realise the potential of digital health and care, not necessarily to provide additional investment.

However, please see the below response in respect of funding that is provided, covering the period of April 2021 to December 2022:

Scottish Government invested £1,306,888 in support of the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI). To confirm, the aquaculture and construction innovation centres are not relevant to digital health and care investment. For Precision Medicine Scotland, there was no spend in 2021-22 and 2022-23 figures are not available due to the financial year not yet being complete. Scottish Innovation Centres is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), detail on SFC spending is available publicly on their website Funding announcements (sfc.ac.uk) . Given the various funding streams from across Scottish Government to Innovation Organisations it would not be possible to quantify those funds in support of digital health and care related work only.

Scottish Government funding to Public Health Scotland is set out in each year’s Scottish Budget which is publicly available on the Scottish Government’s website: Scottish Budget - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ) Detail on PHS spending is set out within the organisation’s annual accounts which are publicly available on their website. Additionally, we directly provided £1,597,088 in support of various programmes of work relating to Digital Health and Care.

The Scottish Government has allocated £1,132,500 for its strategic work programme to build cyber resilience across sectors, as well as an initial spend during 2022/23 on setting up the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre.

Since 2021-22, we have provided £2.45 million funding to the Scotland 5G Centre which has contributed to the development and implementation of digital health and care 5G use cases.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) – In 2021-22 Golden Jubilee/CfSD received allocations from planned care of £5.4m - £3m in programme funding and £2.4m in staffing costs at CfSD. The 2022-23 figures are not available due to the financial year not yet being complete.

Question reference: S6W-14167

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has a permanent digital testing environment that allows potential new health and care technology to be developed and tested in a safe environment, and, if this is the case, how much was spent on developing it.

Question reference: S6W-14240

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13542 by Humza Yousaf on 20 January 2023, whether there are any mandatory e-learning modules or training that are required to be completed for non-executive board members, and, if so, what they are.

Non-Executive Board members are required to undertake mandatory training at local level as a part of their local induction process. This is set out in the Director Letter DL(2019)21 - Induction process for Non-Executive Board Members . In addition, NHS Education for Scotland has a range of learning material available to Board Members. Current eLearning modules include: “Finance”; “Audit and Risk”; and, “Equality and the Role of Board Members in Meeting the Public Sector Duty”. These modules, whilst not mandatory, are recommended.

Question reference: S6W-14155

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on artificial intelligence within health and social care since 2017, broken down by NHS board.

The Scottish Government continues to consider the use of Artificial Intelligence in health and social care through Scotland's AI strategy and the forthcoming Data Strategy for Health and Social Care.

As the implementation of Artificial Intelligence technologies often rely on appropriate use of allocated funding to NHS boards, we do not hold information centrally on the amount specifically spent on Artificial Intelligence within health and social care.

Question reference: S6W-14162

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done with (a) the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) (b) Innovation Centres other than DHI, (c) The Scotland 5G Centre, (d) the cyber resilience sector, (e) the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and (f) Public Health Scotland to ensure that Scotland gets maximum benefit from digital health and care.

Question reference: S6W-14266

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13688 by Maree Todd on 23 January 2023, whether it will provide a list of the 35 projects, broken down by (a) the work that each project completed as a result of the funding, (b) how much funding each project was awarded and (c) the area in which each project is based.

Details of the projects funded through the Neurological Framework can be found on the following page: Neurological Framework Funding: list of organisations funded - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . As projects reach completion, they are asked to submit a final report which details the outcomes achieved. These reports will be made available on this page in due course.

The Scottish Government, alongside the Neurological Alliance of Scotland, are hosting a series of practice-sharing sessions to help to showcase and promote innovative work undertaken by the funded projects. The first of these sessions were held in December 2022 and recordings of these initial three sessions can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/@neurologicalallianceofscotland . Further sessions are currently being planned, to be held on 01 and 08 March 2023.

Question reference: S6W-14161

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many staff have used the Turas platform in each year since it was launched.