- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 April 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 10 May 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Chief Scientist Office provided for clinical research in each year since 2012.
Answer
The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) provides funding to support and facilitate high quality applied research across a wide health and care remit
CSO Approach to Funding – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)
This includes funding in support of research in areas of public health, or health and care where delivery may be outside of clinical settings
CSO's annual budget from 2012-13 to 2022-23 is provided below:
2012-13 £67.9 million
2013-14 £68.3 million
2014-15 £68.5 million
2015-16 £66.8 million
2016-17 £64.8 million
2017-18 £64.4 million
2018-19 £67.2 million
2019-20 £69.9 million
2020-21 £69.9 million
2021-22 £75.4 million (includes £3.5 million non-recurring COVID-19 funding)
2022-23 £78.4 million
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 April 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 10 May 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Chief Scientist Office provided for clinical research infrastructure in each year since 2012.
Answer
The Scottish Government, through the Chief Scientist Office and NHS Research Scotland, has invested approximately £40 million per year in clinical research infrastructure since 2012. This funding supports Health Boards, researchers, clinicians and industry to improve the quality, efficiency, coordination and impact of clinical research, and provides state of the art facilities to conduct clinical trials.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 April 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 29 April 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has met its target to embed, within every Drug and Alcohol Partnership, the 10 Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards by April 2022.
Answer
Work to embed the MAT standards by local services and Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) is a crucial and significant undertaking. To support progress, we are providing multi-year funding to HSCPs specifically for the standards and have set up a MAT support team, based within Public Health Scotland to lead this work.
I have committed to update Parliament on the progress of MAT standards on a six monthly basis and will be returning to Parliament in June to provide an update on progress on embedding the standards.
Local progress from each HSCP area is currently being evaluated and a report will be published in June to coincide with the update to Parliament. This report will be a collation of process, data and lived experience evaluation. This will be followed in short order during the summer with a report providing more detail of work undertaken in each area.
April 2022 is not the end of line for the standards and what happens post April is as equally important. From now and over the life of the National Mission, work will continue on the standards to make sure they are not only embedded, but are improving and are sustainable.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 28 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government from where it has located the additional £6 million funding for the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, which it announced on 25 February 2022.
Answer
The additional funding to deliver the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults in 2021-22 has been identified as part of the £120 million Mental Health Recovery & Renewal (MH R&R) Fund to ensure the delivery of commitments set out in the Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan.
The new Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults was launched in October 2021 with £15 million of funding from the Mental Health Recovery & Renewal budget. The Fund aims to support grassroots community-based initiatives across Scotland which promote good mental health and wellbeing and early intervention for those in distress and tackle the impact of social isolation, loneliness and the mental health inequalities made worse by the pandemic. The Fund is managed locally by Third Sector Interface (TSI) bodies and is designed to support the development of an integrated culture of mental wellbeing and prevention within local communities.
Following a very positive response to the Fund from communities across Scotland, the additional £6 million funding for 2021-22 announced in February has been provided to TSIs to meet the demand for local mental health and wellbeing projects, bringing total funding to £21 million in 2021-22.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 March 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 22 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-06126 by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022, what assessment it has made, based on current projections, of when all screening centres will be able to offer women aged 53 to 70 a breast screening appointment within 39 months of their previous screening.
Answer
Modelling work completed prior to omicron suggested it would be March 2023 before all screening centres in Scotland would reach the point of being able to offer breast screening rounds of 39 months. There are however a number of factors at play including the ongoing pandemic, the steps we are continuing to take to increase capacity in the screening programme, as well as options that are being considered to accelerate the recommencement of self-referrals for women over-70.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 March 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 22 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05937 by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022, what the current capacity of the breast screening programme is, and how this compares with pre-COVID-19 levels before March 2020, as a result of the recent interventions made to increase the number of available appointments.
Answer
Following the restart of the breast screening programme in August 2020, a number of steps continue to be taken to increase capacity in the breast screening programme, including through deploying additional mobile units and offering weekend and evening appointments. The programme is still implementing infection control measures and therefore cannot yet operate in the same way that it did in the pre-Covid period. During Quarters 1 and 2 of 2021 with the provision of additional capacity, including extended opening hours, average capacity levels were near 100% of the 2018-19 average and at certain points over 100%. The impact of the Omicron wave on staff absences in Quarter 3 and into Quarter 4 means average capacity levels have reduced, with the January 2022 actual figure recorded at 84%. The following table shows average capacity figures for periods since the recommencement of the programme in August 2020.
Scotland | Average (Aug - Dec 20) | Average (Jan – Mar 21) | Average (Apr-Jun 21) | Average (Jul-Sep 21) | Average (Oct - Dec 21) | Actual Jan’22 |
% Capacity | 79.4 | 89.4 | 99.5 | 99.6 | 90.0 | 84.0 |
It is important to note that the above is based on management information and is not subject to the same level of scrutiny as published statistical data.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it is adapting its agriculture policy for crops and livestock due to the war in Ukraine.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2022
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 9 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the comments by the
president of COSLA, who said that local authorities are at breaking point.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 9 March 2022
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many breast cancer screening centres are currently meeting the target of offering all eligible women aged 50 to 70 their breast screening appointments within 39 months of their previous screening, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
The data is not available in the format requested as the Scottish Breast Screening Programme (SBSP) is delivered from six screening centres, each covering a designated population. The SBSP should offer an appointment to women within 36 months of their previous screening episode.
On average, the West and South West screening centres are offering women aged 53-70 a screening appointment within 39 months of their last screen.
The National Screening Oversight, Scottish Screening Committee and Breast Screening Programme Board (BSPB) continue to work with health boards to increase the number of available appointments, including through deploying additional mobile breast screening units and providing additional appointments during evenings and at weekends.
It should be noted that this data is unpublished management data that has not been subject to the standard quality checks that are applied to statistical publications.
- Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how many cases of breast cancer may not have been diagnosed as a result of women over 70 not being able to self-refer for routine breast cancer screening.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of cases of breast cancer that may not have been diagnosed as a result of women over 70 not being able to self-refer for routine breast cancer screening. However, in the 3 year period 2016-17 to 2018-19, 32,492 women aged 71 years and over used the option to self-refer for breast screening and 1.43% of these screens detected cancer.
