Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-26743

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 08 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 2 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to sustainably fund Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) for the long-term, to ensure that it can provide lifeline care and support to children and families in light of the reported rising costs and increased need for its services.

Question reference: S6O-03396

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 May 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what value it places on specialist alcohol services, such as the Primary Care Alcohol Nurse Outreach Service in Glasgow, in dealing with the reported public health crisis in relation to alcohol.

Question reference: S6W-26761

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many people are currently waiting for an initial assessment of hearing loss in each NHS board area, also broken down by what the (a) average and (b) longest waiting time for such an assessment is in each NHS board.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) does not hold the information requested.

PHS uses the national waiting times datamart to collect electronic patient records covering the waits that patients experience waiting for a new outpatient appointment at a consultant led clinic. If a patient has been referred to a hearing loss clinic led by an audiologist, then those waits are not captured in the national dataset. On occasions where patients are referred directly to be assessed by an ear, nose & throat (ENT) consultant then those waits are included in the official statistics reported for ENT in the following link.

However, the data captured nationally does not allow for the identification of specific clinics and services within any specialty. https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/25286/newop_feb24.xlsx

Question reference: S6W-26728

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported concerns that any decrease in training places for radiology students between 2023 and 2024 will prevent it meeting its aim to provide 10 additional radiology training places each year.

A commitment was made in 2018 to create 10 additional clinical radiology training places per year over a five-year period. This commitment was met in full in 2022 following five years of consecutive uplifts. This saw the overall training establishment rise from 139 in 2017 (before the commitment was made) to 192 in 2022 (after the commitment had been met). The number of established clinical radiology training posts in Scotland has not decreased between 2023 and 2024 in any region. There are 192 established posts in clinical radiology spread across the five year training programme (ST1-ST5) and this has been the case since 2022 i.e. since the latest funded increase was applied. The number of posts advertised per year by NHS Education for Scotland is determined by two factors: i) the number of vacant posts, due to trainees completing training, resigning from post or undergoing an inter-deanery transfer, and ii) whether any additional posts have been created. The number of posts which are available for new applicants to apply for varies annually due to trainees working on a part-time basis (and therefore taking longer to complete training and vacate their post).

Question reference: S6W-26725

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many training places for radiology students there have been in each year since 2018, also broken down by training centre/region.

The following table sets out the number of clinical radiology training places advertised and filled per year from 2017 onwards (broken down by region) as well as the overall training establishment in each year. ‘Training establishment’ is the term given to the overall number of funded places on a training programme. Please note that the 2024 recruitment cycle is currently underway and will conclude in November.

	East	North	South East	West	Total no. of new trainees recruited	Overall training establishment
2023	4/4 (100%)	5/5 (100%)	8/8 (100%)	19/19 (100%)	36/36 (100%)	192
2022	4/4 (100%)	4/4 (100%)	7/7 (100%)	22/22 (100%)	37/37 (100%)	192
2021	3/3 (100%)	6/6 (100%)	8/8 (100%)	17/17 (100%)	34/34 (100%)	182
2020	5/5 (100%)	6/6/ (100%)	11/11 (100%)	17/17 (100%)	39/39 (100%)	172
2019	4/4 (100%)	4/4 (100%)	6/6 (100%)	12/12 (100%)	26/26 (100%)	160
2018	3/3 (100%)	6/6 (100%)	7/7 (100%)	19/19 (100%)	35/35 (100%)	149
2017	4/4 (100%	6/6 (100%)	4/4 (100%)	14/14(100%)	28/28 (100%)	139

Question reference: S6W-26727

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason training places for radiology students reportedly decreased for the West of Scotland training centre/region from 19 places in August 2023 to six places in August 2024.

The number of established clinical radiology training posts in Scotland has not decreased between 2023 and 2024 in any region. There are 192 established posts in clinical radiology spread across the five year training programme (ST1-ST5) and this has been the case since 2022 i.e. since the latest funded increase was applied. The number of posts advertised per year by NHS Education for Scotland is determined by two factors: i) the number of vacant posts, due to trainees completing training, resigning from post or undergoing an inter-deanery transfer, and ii) whether any additional posts have been created. The number of posts which are available for new applicants to apply for varies annually due to trainees working on a part-time basis (and therefore taking longer to complete training and vacate their post).

Question reference: S6W-26726

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason training places for radiology students reportedly decreased between 2023 and 2024.

The number of established clinical radiology training posts in Scotland has not decreased between 2023 and 2024 in any region. There are 192 established posts in clinical radiology spread across the five year training programme (ST1-ST5) and this has been the case since 2022 i.e. since the latest funded increase was applied. The number of posts advertised per year by NHS Education for Scotland is determined by two factors: i) the number of vacant posts, due to trainees completing training, resigning from post or undergoing an inter-deanery transfer, and ii) whether any additional posts have been created. The number of posts which are available for new applicants to apply for varies annually due to trainees working on a part-time basis (and therefore taking longer to complete training and vacate their post).

Question reference: S6W-26759

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to deliver a primary care community audiology service during the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-26760

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken an assessment of any current unmet need for people with hearing loss.

The Scottish Government has not recently undertaken an assessment of unmet need for people with hearing loss, but we are engaged with stakeholders and those with lived experience to inform our understanding of unmet need.

As part of the See Hear Strategy refresh, we have engaged with people who are hard of hearing, deaf and deafblind. This includes children, young people and their parents/ carers.

We asked what topics and issues matter to them for inclusion in the strategy, through an online survey and a series of in-person and online focus groups and interviews.

In total we have received insights from over 170 adults with lived experience and 17 parents and carers of children/young people. Additional focus group discussions were held with 17 children and young people with lived experience from all sensory impairment groups. The engagement took place between September 2023 and February 2024.

Question reference: S6W-26764

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans for community audiology services to be able to prescribe and fit hearing aids.

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