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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.

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Question reference: S2W-21203

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 1 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to introduce My Bookstart Treasure Chest for children aged 36 to 48 months, as introduced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Question reference: S2W-21202

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 1 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to introduce the Bookstart plus scheme for toddlers aged 18 to 30 months, as introduced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Question reference: S2W-21201

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 1 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been carried out of the impact of the Bookstart pack for babies aged up to 12 months on the speech and language skills of children.

Question reference: S2W-20617

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 25 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many managed clinical networks have been established for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and where these are located.

There is a COPD Managed Clinical Network (MCN) in NHS Grampian.

Our general approach is to encourage the development of such networks where they would bring tangible benefits for those with COPD. I have agreed that pump-priming funding should be made available to support the development of another COPD MCN. The department has had discussions with representatives of the British Lung Foundation in Scotland and ABPI Scotland about the part of the country where that MCN could be established with maximum effect.

There are many examples across Scotland of informal networking amongst health professionals dealing with COPD, and we are aware of plans to develop an MCN for respiratory conditions in NHS Borders.

Question reference: S2W-20616

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 23 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The information is given in the following table:

Deaths in Scotland where Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease¹ was the Underlying Cause

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Scotland	2,941	2,825	2,836	2,840	3,014	2,752
Aberdeen City	117	105	110	103	115	105
Aberdeenshire	89	69	86	83	81	72
Angus	77	60	54	61	59	68
Argyll and Bute	45	42	53	46	56	61
Clackmannanshire	21	28	22	27	24	28
Dumfries and Galloway	94	104	94	91	106	107
Dundee City	115	119	99	107	118	96
East Ayrshire	79	71	86	90	92	67
East Dunbartonshire	51	49	35	40	41	42
East Lothian	52	46	46	55	59	47
East Renfrewshire	32	36	31	43	30	24
Edinburgh, City of	231	225	202	206	240	214
Eilean Siar	10	14	7	12	8	12
Falkirk	75	96	74	88	94	82
Fife	171	196	195	203	205	190
Glasgow City	518	445	463	438	490	406
Highland	91	76	111	101	95	114
Inverclyde	56	55	42	62	70	44
Midlothian	43	41	49	50	77	55
Moray	31	36	28	36	34	32
North Ayrshire	79	83	93	69	91	66
North Lanarkshire	180	159	178	183	178	192
Orkney Islands	4	6	6	9	5	4
Perth and Kinross	88	73	75	68	73	75
Renfrewshire	106	90	91	91	88	96
Scottish Borders	48	56	68	60	82	64
Shetland Islands	7	5	8	9	8	11
South Ayrshire	66	72	72	62	58	66
South Lanarkshire	179	160	170	153	146	163
Stirling	43	45	46	40	38	36
West Dunbartonshire	71	80	61	63	66	49
West Lothian	72	83	81	91	87	64

Source: General Register Office for Scotland.

Notes: 1. 1999 data: ICD9 codes 490-492, 496, 2000 data: ICD10 codes J40-J44.

Question reference: S2W-20615

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 22 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board area.

The information is given in the following table:

Deaths in Scotland where Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease¹ was the Underlying Cause

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Scotland	2,941	2,825	2,836	2,840	3,014	2,752
Argyll and Clyde	250	240	235	247	256	232
Ayrshire and Arran	224	226	251	221	241	199
Borders	48	56	68	60	82	64
Dumfries and Galloway	94	104	94	91	106	107
Fife	171	196	195	203	205	190
Forth Valley	139	169	142	155	156	147
Grampian	237	210	224	222	230	209
Greater Glasgow	668	594	590	578	624	525
Highland	91	76	111	101	95	114
Lanarkshire	320	282	299	294	285	320
Lothian	398	395	378	402	463	380
Orkney	4	6	6	9	5	4
Shetland	7	5	8	9	8	11
Tayside	280	252	228	236	250	238
Western Isles	10	14	7	12	8	12

Source: General Register Office for Scotland.

Note: 1. 1999 Data: ICD9 codes 490-492, 496, 2000 data: ICD10 codes J40-J44.

Question reference: S2W-20672

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 22 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to improve services for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) since the Minister for Health and Community Care addressed the Celtic Conference on COPD in June 2005.

As I made clear at that conference, people with COPD will benefit from the generic approach to the management of long-term conditions set out in Delivering for Health. In the Scottish context, the most effective way of improving services for those with COPD is for organisations representing their interests to engage with community health partnerships and with the Long-Term Conditions Alliance for Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-20489

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what regulation of the counselling and psychotherapy profession there (a) is currently and (b) will be in future and what discussions it has had with the (i) Secretary of State for Health, (ii) Minister for Health and Social Services at the Welsh Assembly Government and (iii) Northern Ireland Office on the matter.

Counselling and psychotherapy are not currently subject to statutory regulation, although some practitioners are subject to partial voluntary regulation through membership of professional organisations.

The Scottish Executive has had no discussions with either the Secretary of State for Health, the Minister for Health and Social Services at the Welsh Assembly Government, or the Northern Ireland Office about future statutory regulation for these particular professions.

Scottish Executive officials are in close contact with officials in the Department of Health (DH) in England who are in the lead on plans for future UK regulation across a wide spectrum of health care professions. This includes counselling and psychotherapy, and DH has had preliminary discussions with the relevant professional bodies about the possibility of regulation by the Health Professions Council (HPC). Regulation is still some way off, however, as the professions are now working towards meeting HPC criteria. The Executive will fully engage with future dialogue as it develops.

Question reference: S2W-20332

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the legislation to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces will apply to the terraces within football stadia.

Question reference: S2W-19900

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 7 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what action will be taken to improve waiting times for bowel cancer treatment.

The 2005 cancer waitingtimes target is a big challenge for the NHS. We set a stretching target andrecognise it will be difficult to meet. NHS boards are continuing to takeaction to accelerate change and eliminate blockages in referral, diagnosis andtreatment.

A National Delivery Plan settingout additional actions aimed at driving down waiting times across the patientpathway is available using the following link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/cancer/cancerwaits.

An extra 25 nurse endoscopistswill be trained during 2005 and 2006 to optimise use of endoscopy in bowelcancer diagnosis. In addition, over time, the recently announced new diagnosticwaiting times standards (no more than nine weeks for a range of diagnosticimaging techniques) and the accompanying Diagnostic Project now gettingunderway will also help improve bowel cancer waiting times.