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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: S5W-21518

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address the reported 10% consultant vacancy rate in neurology and medicine for older people.

The Scottish Government works closely with Boards to support their efforts in staff recruitment and retention. To support health boards, we are investing £4 million over the next three years in domestic and international recruitment for GPs, nursing, midwifery and consultant specialties with the highest existing vacancy rates.

We are working to develop a comprehensive plan to help address recruitment and retention challenges across the health and social care sector. This includes consultation on Scotland’s first National Action Plan for Neurological Conditions, which covers a number of areas including workforce planning. We are carefully considering the consultations responses with a view to publishing the final plan later this year.

Question reference: S5W-21606

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time has been for an appointment at a chronic pain clinic in each year since 1999.

Data on waiting times for a chronic pain clinic has only been collated since December 2015.

The below table sets out the median waiting time in weeks for a first appointment at a pain clinic or pain psychology clinic since December 2015.

Table 1: Median wait in weeks for a first appointment at a pain clinic or pain psychology clinic

Quarter Ending	Pain clinic/ service	Pain psychology clinic
31-DEC-2015	11	7
31-MAR-2016	12	9
30-JUN-2016	13	10
30-SEP-2016	16	6
31-DEC-2016	15	8
31-MAR-2017	13	11
30-JUN-2017	13	9
30-SEP-2017	13	8
31-DEC-2017	12	12
31-MAR-2018	12	10
30-JUN-2018	12	14
30-SEP-2018	13	20

Source: ISD Waiting Times Warehouse

Question reference: S5W-21523

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 26 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many deep brain stimulation (DBS) procedures have been performed since the national DBS centre opened in April 2018.

Question reference: S5W-21519

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 22 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that people with Parkinson’s are able to access appropriate mental health services.

The Scottish Government wants everyone with a neurological condition to be able to access the care and support they need to live well, on their own terms, and we are determined to improve access to mental health services for all those who need them. We are investing £250 million in services over five years, and £54 million to help NHS Boards improve access to psychological therapies by investing in workforce development, recruitment and retention, and service improvement support. Additionally, we support NHS 24 to provide a number of other services designed to expand access to treatment including computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Question reference: S5W-21287

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to prescribing very low calorie diets as part of action by the NHS to tackle rises in obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Tackling obesity and the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes are high priorities for the Scottish Government.

In addition to the Diet & Healthy Weight delivery plan, last summer I published the Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, Early Detection and Intervention Framework , the implementation of which will be supported by £42 million over the next 5 years. The framework provides national guidance to NHS Boards on the provision of evidenced-based weight management interventions. This includes very low calorie diets and total diet replacement programmes with staged food re-introduction, to suitable patients, based on evidence of successful remission results from the DiRECT trial, a collaboration between University of Glasgow, Newcastle University and Diabetes UK.

The Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, Early Detection and Intervention Framework can be found at this line: https://www.gov.scot/publications/healthier-future-framework-prevention-early-detection-early-intervention-type-2/pages/11/ .

Question reference: S5O-02929

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made with introducing access to thrombectomy services in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-21323

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 20 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-16693 by Shona Robison on 29 May 2018, whether it will provide an update regarding the VOICES survey to capture end of life experiences of family members and carers who have been bereaved.

The NHS Lothian project team has recently reported that they have completed the significant preparatory work required to take forward this project.

The project team have chosen not to proceed as initially planned, for a number of reasons. These include the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation which has increased costs significantly, the large sample size required to make the findings useful for service improvement, the need to put in place support arrangements for those contacted, and most significantly the ethical requirement for the benefit of those findings to outweigh the distress caused by surveying the recently deceased.

Officials have asked the project team to take forward additional work to provide options on how best to establish a more coherent picture of the quality of end of life care, including the views of the bereaved, which can also be used for improving service delivery.

Question reference: S5W-21524

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 February 2019

To ask Scottish Government how much each NHS board has spent on locum neurologists in each year since 2015.

Spend on Agency Locums in secondary care reduced by 8.8% from £110,120,000 in 2016-17 to £100,382,000 in 2017-18. In 2015-16 spend was £98,298,000. Spend on internal NHS locums was £47,737,000 in 2017-18, which has increased from £39,539,000 in 2016-17, and was £43,017,000 in 2015-16. This increase reflects our commitment to expand the internal Staff Bank, securing more of our temporary staff from this area. Spend data on specific staff groups is not held centrally.

In September 2018 there were 64.5 WTE Neurologists in post, a rise from 58.7 in September 2015.

Question reference: S5W-21220

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in Scotland it estimates were smokers in 2017-18, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S5W-20925

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 31 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the purpose is of the NHS Scotland (a) Project Management Support Directorate and (b) Customer Engagement and Development Directorate, and how many staff the directorate has, broken down by role.

The purpose of NHS National Services Scotland’s (NSS) (a) Project Management Support Directorate and (b) Customer Engagement and Development Directorate; and how many staff are in each directorate, broken down by role, is as follows:

( a) Programme Management Services (PgMS) supports stakeholders including the Scottish Government, NHS Boards and Integration Joint Boards to deliver improved health and social care services. It provides a flexible approach to portfolio management, programme and project management, programme assurance supporting service transformation. PgMS currently supports the delivery of new national approaches to radiology, laboratories, aseptic pharmacy and is actively involved in supporting change programmes across many areas of health and care. PgMS is largely funded through project specific income. There are 123 roles in PgMS and 9 types of role. There is a mix of full and part time roles and a mix of permanent and temporary roles.

Role	Number of Staff
Associate Directors	2
Programme Directors	3
Project Portfolio Managers	5
Programme Managers	22
Project Managers	44
Project Support Officers	33
Specialists/subject matter experts (clinical, IT, HR, workflow)	10
Business Lead	1
Administrative Assistants	3

( b) The Customer Engagement & Development Directorate provides NSS with the following services:

Internal and External Communications - responsibility for staff communications and engagement activity across all of NSS, handling and coordinating media responses on behalf of NSS and managing the NSS digital presence. There are 19 roles and 4 types of role. There is a mix of full and part time roles.

Role	Number of Staff
Head of Department	1
Senior Managers	2
Managers	6
Operational Staff	10

‎ Partnership Development - developing and managing strategic partnerships across health and care, covering 22 health boards, 31 integration joint boards, 32 local authorities, 3 city deals and other public sector organisations such as SOLACE and COSLA; identifying opportunities for NSS to support these organisations in the delivery of health and care related initiatives. There are 5 roles and 4 types of role. There is a mix of full and part time roles.

Role	Number of Staff
Head of Department	1
Senior Manager	1
Managers	2
Support Staff	1

Customer Experience – undertaking research to assess customer satisfaction and to gather feedback on service performance and future needs; supporting NSS services to develop customer action plans to help improve their performance in line with customer expectations; analysing key health and care information and providing reports to senior leaders to help inform NSS strategy and service development. There are 7 roles and 3 types of role. All are full time.

Role	Number of Staff
Head of Department	1
Business Partners	3
Managers	3

‎ International Engagement – there is a Service Level Agreement in place with Scottish Government for the provision of international engagement services. Since 2013 the team has facilitated income for Scottish partners of just over £10 million from EU funded research and innovation projects. Key activities include building Scotland’s reputation in health and care; strengthening Scotland’s international relationships and network; identifying and securing funding for new innovation projects and services. There are 5 roles and 3 types of role. There is a mix of full and part time roles.

Role	Number of Staff
Head of Department	1
Senior Managers	2
Support Staff	2

‎ Digital development - supporting NSS to transform its web and intranet presence so that more services can be delivered digitally, which in turn will help NSS services achieve future efficiencies. The activity is delivered as part of the NSS Service Transformation Programme, which is funded separately by NSS from its cash releasing efficiency savings. There are 8 roles and 3 types of role. All roles are temporary.

Role	Number of Staff
Senior Manager	1
Designers (content and user experience)	6
Support Staff	1