Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 8795 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-28159

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 25 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care will meet with (a) the Royal College of Radiologists and (b) NHS England to discuss the recommendations that were made in the 2023 Clinical Oncology and Clinical Radiology Workforce Census reports.

Question reference: S6W-28319

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will implement the recommendations from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Scotland to prevent inappropriate care and crowding in emergency departments.

Question reference: S6W-28320

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to provide additional resource to hospitals to ensure that there is sufficient capacity within emergency departments to safely treat patients.

Question reference: S6W-28317

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the latest report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Scotland on A&E crowding and corridor waits.

Question reference: S6W-28318

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Scotland that, between March and April 2024, 826 patients presented across 21 emergency departments in Scotland, with 12.8% of those being treated on trolleys in the corridor.

Question reference: S6W-28322

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the occupancy rate of (a) general and (b) acute beds in hospitals has been in each of the last 12 months, also broken down by (i) NHS board and (ii) hospital.

Question reference: S6W-28321

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 July 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recently published Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Scotland report on crowding in hospitals, whether it will increase the number of general and acute beds within hospitals so that occupancy is at 85% maximum.

Question reference: S6W-28157

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to increase specialty training places for clinical radiology and clinical oncology to avoid the shortfalls of 36% and 22% respectively by 2028, as projected by the Royal College of Radiologists.

The Scottish Government has funded the creation of 68 additional training places in clinical radiology since 2014 in line with recommendations made by the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group (SSoTTG). The number of funded posts in clinical oncology has also increased by 15 over the same period. The SSoTTG is currently undertaking its annual review of medical training establishments and will be submitting recommendations later in the year for expansion taking place in 2025. This annual review will consider the need for expansion in all medical specialties, including clinical radiology and clinical oncology, to ensure that Scotland has a sufficient supply of trained doctors coming through the system to meet anticipated future demand for consultants. Recommendations to expand are informed by medical workforce modelling undertaken by NHS Education for Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-28158

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the estimates from the Royal College of Radiologists that 20% of clinical oncology consultants and 18% of clinical radiology consultants are forecast to retire in the next five years, what plans it has to retain more clinical oncologists and radiologists in the workforce.

The Scottish Government recognises the need for active measures to improve retention across the health and social care workforce, which is essential to ensure confidence in longer-term modelling of a sustainable future medical workforce to meet future clinical service demand.

One of the 11 ambitions in the Cancer Strategy is for a Sustainable and Skilled Workforce with actions under 5 pillars. There are six actions being taken forward under ‘nurture’ to aid retention of staff.

For example, retiring employees who wish to continue in employment that is suitable to them and the service are supported by the Retire and Return provisions in the NHSScotland Retirement Policy . In addition, the NHSScotland Flexible work location policy and NHSScotland Flexible work pattern policy provide staff with a range of flexible working options to help them to balance their lifestyle whilst maintaining and promoting the best possible service to our patients and service users, supporting retention.

Question reference: S6W-28161

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it would consider working with (a) NHS Scotland, (b) the Royal College of Radiologists and (c) the Association of Cancer Physicians to develop a recruitment campaign to attract trainees to oncology training posts.

A number of actions are already underway to improve recruitment into clinical and medical oncology. For example, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are:

Increasing front-end supply by funding the creation of additional posts in Internal Medicine Training (IMT), which is a pre-requisite for both clinical and medical oncology (42 IMT posts added in 2021 and 22 in 2024).
Using these IMT posts to increase exposure to oncology during the early years of a doctors career.
Exploring the feasibility of a regional rotational training post to attract applicants to vacant posts in the North and East of Scotland.
Providing ongoing support to trainees wishing to enter oncology training through alternative routes.
Delivering (a) oncology-themed national training days in all regions for IMT and Foundation trainees, and (b) ‘roadshows’ in all regions to promote oncology as a specialism.

In addition, the Training Programme Directors (TPD) for clinical and medical oncology within NES sit on the respective Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) Specialty Advisory Committees (SAC). The SACs then feed into the relevant Specialty Training Board (STB) within NES. The TPD for medical oncology is a member of the Association of Cancer Physicians (ACP). The TPD for both medical and clinical oncology feed back to the RCR with relevant issues arising from the STB. The RCR and ACP both had major involvement in designing and implementing the new oncology curricula, which is now fully embedded.

The Chief Medical Officer met with the Royal College of Radiologists on 14 December 2023 and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer met with them on 16 May 2024.