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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-26604

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what recent work the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer has done in relation to consistency in prescribing across the NHS, and when they last updated the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care on any such work.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer meets regularly with both the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health, and Social Care and I on medicine policy matters, including supporting consistency in prescribing across the NHS in Scotland. This includes work on evolving individual Health Board medicine formularies to regional formularies covering prescribing in both hospitals and primary care, based on a collaborative consensus model which builds upon proven existing local governance and decision-making processes. This work has recently been endorsed by Health Board Chief Executives as a priority work programme.

Question reference: S6W-26918

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 30 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with NHS Scotland regarding how NHS boards record complaints about food provision to patients during hospital stays.

Operational guidance regarding the provision of food is provided to Boards from Health Facilities Scotland (a division of National Services Scotland). Boards carry out quality assurance activity of their catering services through several mechanisms. Patient Experience Surveys are used in all boards, through a variety of methods, and include questions on national measures of quality (which are reported annually to Health Facilities Scotland), alongside additional questions included by the board. Mealtime observations, where the ward service is observed and measured against several topic areas, are used to help to identify areas for improvement. However, some boards do not currently carry out these types of audits. All feedback should be reviewed by the service and used to measure the quality of the service from the patient’s perspective, helping to identify areas for improvement.

Patient Feedback should be considered at several forums, including at the board’s Strategic Hydration and Nutritional Care Group or Food, Fluid and Nutrition Group meetings.

Where patients have complaints, Boards are encouraged to utilise the NHS Complaints Handling Procedure. Where suitable, Boards are encouraged to resolve straightforward complaints at the earliest opportunity, however where this is not possible complaints can be escalated to an investigation stage.

Question reference: S6W-26919

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 30 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many medical records team leaders currently work in the NHS, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S6T-01957

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 April 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the number of private GP clinics has reportedly tripled since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S6W-26898

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 29 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of any variation in pay, terms and conditions for social workers across different local authorities.

Scottish Government conducted a survey of job vacancies advertised in myjobscotland in September 2023, as part of joint work with COSLA on social workers pay variation across Scotland. This survey indicated that at that time there was a difference of average pay of circa £7k between the lowest and highest paying employers. The lowest paying £33,500 per annum and the highest £40,673. The majority of Scotland’s employers in the public sector pay between £36,400 and £38,480.

Question reference: S6W-26928

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 29 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many secondary school physical education teachers were employed by each local authority in 2023-24.

The following table shows the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) Secondary teachers with Physical Education reported as their main subject by each local authority. Head teachers and Depute head teachers are not included.

Teacher FTE numbers for individual subjects in Secondary schools are published in Table 8.9 in the annual Teacher Census Supplementary statistics available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/ .

Secondary school teachers (FTE) with Physical Education as main subject taught 2023 - Excludes head and depute head teachers.

	FTE
Aberdeen City	62
Aberdeenshire	96
Angus	49
Argyll and Bute	32
City of Edinburgh	155
Clackmannanshire	17
Dumfries and Galloway	53
Dundee City	43
East Ayrshire	42
East Dunbartonshire	53
East Lothian	36
East Renfrewshire	64
Falkirk	97
Fife	132
Glasgow City	207
Highland	87
Inverclyde	29
Midlothian	49
Moray	34
Na h-Eileanan Siar	10
North Ayrshire	53
North Lanarkshire	130
Orkney Islands	7
Perth and Kinross	53
Renfrewshire	70
Scottish Borders	45
Shetland Islands	9
South Ayrshire	44
South Lanarkshire	134
Stirling	45
West Dunbartonshire	32
West Lothian	89
All local authorities	2,057
Grant Aided	4
Scotland	2,061

Question reference: S6W-26924

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with allied health professional organisations, and what was discussed.

Carolyn McDonald, in her capacity as Chief Allied Health Professions Officer (CAHPO) met most recently with the Allied Health Professions Federation Scotland (AHPFS) on 3 April, 2024. Discussion included the National Care Service, Education, Government Consultations and Representation. The CAPHO and the Scottish Government will continue to engage with relevant Allied Health Professional Bodies and Organisations on a regular basis.

Question reference: S6W-26921

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have asked to access their medical records in (a) the last 12 months and (b) each of the previous 10 years.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Requests for access to medical records is a function conferred in law to the data controllers. NHS Scotland is made up of a federated group of independent organisations including health boards, GP Practices, Dentists, Opticians and other health services providers, each of whom may be individual data controllers depending on the specific information.

Question reference: S6W-26895

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what work it is doing with faith groups, including churches, to ensure that they understand how the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 potentially impacts on their practice, in light of reports that some faith communities are unsure about what impact the Act could have on them.

As part of its Faith and Belief Engagement Strategy, Scottish Government regularly meets with representatives from a wide variety of faith and belief communities across Scotland to discuss issues of interest to them. This has included discussions with officials developing the Hate Crime Strategy. Those representatives were recently provided with a factsheet, clarifying aspects of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, and which is intended to be disseminated by those representatives through Churches and other places of worship, along with wider faith and belief communities across Scotland.

Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act: factsheet - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Question reference: S6W-26697

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on developing a strategy to consider the concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods in Scotland.

Local Living and 20 minute neighbourhood is one of the national planning policies set out in the Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4), adopted by Scottish Ministers in February 2023.

NPF4 Policy 15, Local living and 20 minute neighbourhoods supports the delivery of local living, including applying the 20 minute neighbourhood concept in places through local development plans and masterplans.

The 20 minute neighbourhood concept is also recognised in a number of Scottish Government strategies including Housing to 2040, Retail Strategy for Scotland, Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26, and Town Centre Action Plan 2.

On 25 April planning guidance on Local Living and 20 minute neighbourhoods was published, setting out a framework and information on how the concepts of local living and 20 minute neighbourhood can be applied in a Scottish context.