- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 6 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis is not currently provided by any NHS boards, despite it having been approved for use by NHS Scotland.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01751 on 6 August 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 4 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-33254 by Joe FitzPatrick on 2 December 2020, how many patients who had their routine cervical screening test delayed have (a) now received a test, (b) been referred for further investigation and (c) not yet received an invite for an appointment.
Answer
Initial estimates suggest that 5,786 invitations have not yet issued to people affected by the pause, but it should be stressed that this will be for a range of reasons, including participants being excluded from the programme after it restarted, or taking the opportunity to be screened at their GP ahead of their scheduled prompt to make an appointment. Data on patients who had their routine cervical screening test delayed and have (a) now received a test, (b) referred for further investigation is not routinely available at present.
Public Health Scotland will release their annual statistical report on the cervical screening programme on 1 September 2021.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 12 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 3 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason earwax-removal services are no longer offered through the NHS.
Answer
Ear wax removal services are available through the NHS.
How to treat ear wax is a clinical decision; ear syringing is not the current preferred procedure and is no longer routinely provided by clinicians.
The NHS has continued to provide services to patients throughout the pandemic. However, due to the pressures of the pandemic some routine condition management has needed to be paused but only in those instances where it is safe to do so.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 30 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many contact tracers have been working for the COVID-19 Test and Protect service in each week since 1 May 2021, also broken down by how many were (a) redeployed and (b) seconded NHS staff.
Answer
Table 1 shows the average daily number of Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) Contact Tracers scheduled to work on the COVID-19 Test and Protect service each week from 1 May. These are projected workforce figures taken from management information submitted by Health Boards in weekly returns and therefore do not necessarily represent final deployment figures. Wider support and administration staff are not included in these returns.
The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on the proportion of these staff who are secondees or redeployed; the secondment and deployment of staff is a matter for each board.
Table 1. Whole Time Equivalent Contact Tracers working for the COVID-19 Test and Protect service in each week from 1 May 2021
28 April 4 May | 5 - 11 May | 12 - 18 May | 19 - 25 May | 26 May - 1 June | 2 - 8 June | 9-15 June |
629.67 | 596.1 | 619.75 | 617.53 | 619.03 | 599.97 | 628.11 |
16-22 June | 23 - 29 June | 30 June - 6 July | 7 July - 13 July | 14 July - 20 July | 21 July - 27 July |
671.42 | 673.47 | 738.69 | 859.72 | 819.92 | 935.65 |
Management information also collated on the 21st of July 2021 indicates the total Headcount of trained Contact Tracers available as part of the Test and Protect programme is 2914. This is broken down as follows:
Territorial Health Boards: 1066
National Contact Centre: 1848
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 30 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many people are on the waiting list for a colposcopy, also broken down by how many have been waiting (a) eight to 16, (b) 17 to 32, (c) 33 to 52 and (d) over 52 weeks.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or by Public Health Scotland.
Information relating to the number of patients awaiting a colposcopy and their length of wait would be held by individual Health Boards.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 30 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been (a) fined or (b) arrested for not wearing face coverings.
Answer
Enforcement of the Coronavirus Regulations is a matter for the Chief Constable and Police Scotland.
The latest data available on Police Scotland’s website Enforcement and Response Data - Police Scotland shows that as of 14 July 2021, 16,993 fixed-penalty notices have been issued and 971 arrests have been made under these regulations.
The published figures are not broken down to show the reasons for issuing of fixed-penalty notices or arrests; the presentation and format of Police Scotland data, is an operational matter for the Chief Constable.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 09 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 29 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what modelling it did of the potential impact that reducing restrictions would have on positive cases of COVID-19 and resultant demand on the Test and Protect system.
Answer
Since May 2020 the Scottish Government has published projections of infections, hospitalisations and ICU admissions in its weekly publication Modelling the Epidemic in Scotland Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . These projections also feed into internal Scottish Government models on the demand of the Test and Protect system, including the tracing workforce, to enable operational planning.
The path of the pandemic has been highly complex and uncertain over the last 16 months and this is reflected in the complexity and uncertainty of the modelling. We make the best judgements we can on the data in front of us and the advice we have. Right now, as often in the past, our judgement is that the best path for us in Scotland is to make progress carefully and cautiously, and that is what we are doing.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 09 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 29 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what the public health guidance is regarding the change from five to two days when tracing the recent contacts of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
Answer
The contact tracing system has not changed its approach regarding the time frame used to identify close contacts.
Those testing positive who have attended a complex or high-risk setting during their infectious period, or who have travelled in the last 14 days, are contact traced and then referred to their local Health Board, who will make a risk-based decision on whether ‘backwards’ contact tracing is appropriate to enable Test and Protect to identify where the index case might have contracted the virus. This ‘pre-infectious period’ covers the 5 days prior to the infectious period.
Separately, the timeframe of 48 hours before symptom onset or a positive test, plus the 10 days after, relates to the infectious period of a positive person. This is based on clinical advice and has been the position since Test and Protect was launched in May 2020. Close contacts identified during this timeframe are offered public health advice by Test and Protect to prevent potential onward spread of the virus.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether Ministers are notified of deaths due to hospital-acquired infections.
Answer
Ministers are not notified of every patient death by suspected hospital acquired infection. However, Ministers are routinely notified of incidents of hospital infection outbreaks (involving two or more patients) with management information regarding the organism of infection, number of patients involved in the outbreak, investigations and any suspected deaths associated with the outbreak.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 05 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 July 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has made of the impact of the Deposit Return Scheme on small producers.
Answer
We give careful consideration to representations made by small producers regarding our proposals for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), including most recently in relation to the impact of COVID-19.
We believe that we have taken account of their concerns in our design for DRS, including by introducing an exemption from the annual £360 fee to register with SEPA for producers with a turnover of £85,000 or less.
As set out on page 52 of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we expect any impacts on the ability of smaller drinks producers to compete in the Scottish market to be minor. The BRIA is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-full-business-regulatory-impact-assessment-2/documents/ .