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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-06784

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 500 new health visitors that it announced in June 2014 will be in post by 2017-18.

Question reference: S5W-06786

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many integrated care homes there are.

At 31 January 2017 there were 1,149 care homes for adults operating.

Of these, 853 were care homes for older people and 296 were care homes for other adults, primarily adults with disabilities. Care homes provide a variety of services and support people who are funded in different ways.

We estimate that there are around 700 Intermediate Care beds across Scotland. These beds are commissioned by individual Integration Joint Boards to provide short-term rehabilitation and reablement in a more homely setting, following an acute episode of care, with the aim or returning the person back to their own home.

Many more care home places are commissioned by health and social care partnerships to support people with a range of needs.

Question reference: S5W-06788

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Scotland report, The State of Child Health, and which of the report's recommendations it plans to take forward.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's State of Child Health report which reaffirms the work currently underway across government to improve child health. The Scottish Government is carefully considering all of the recommendations in the report to identify any further work needed.

Many of the report's recommendations are already being taken forward in Scotland including: rolling out the Family Nurse Partnership to reach every eligible teenage mother in Scotland by the end of 2018; prioritisation and expansion of the health visiting service provided to families; bringing forward a Child Poverty Bill for Scotland; maintaining our commitment to support people in Scotland affected by the UK Government's welfare cuts; providing a Baby Box for all newborn babies; progress in achieving the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly best practice standards; placing relationships, sexual health and parenthood education at the centre of the school curriculum; achieving the target of halving exposure to second hand smoke through the Take it Right Outside campaign five years early; investing in a range of programmes to support and encourage healthy eating; investing in free school meals for all primary one to three children; investing in physical education in schools; exceeding our target of delivering 150 Community Sport Hubs across all local authorities; working on a new Mental Health Strategy which will focus on the earliest and most effective interventions to prevent children and young people from becoming ill; and committing to producing an overarching child health and wellbeing strategy to consolidate all of the actions.

Question reference: S5W-07156

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the administrative forms that nurses have to fill out.

Record keeping of an individual’s care is an important aspect of a nurse’s role and contributes to ensuring quality of care. As part of their role nurses and midwives must keep clear and accurate records relevant to their practice. This requirement is set out in the revised Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Code, which came in to effect from 31 March 2015, and further details of the requirements can be found at - https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/nmc-code.pdf

In addition as part of our Excellence in Care work programme, led by our Chief Nursing Officer, we will be including work on record keeping.

Question reference: S5W-07170

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been refused (a) cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and (b) other talking therapies or psychological treatments in each of the last five years because they did not take anti-depressant medication.

Any prescribing or referral for psychological therapies treatment is a clinical decision for a patient’s doctor in discussion with the patient and in terms of anti-depressants there is good evidence that GPs assess and treat depression appropriately. All GPs prescribing is monitored and discussed individually through annual appraisal. Audit of prescribing in mental health commonly occurs involving Health Board pharmacy departments. There is National annual reporting of prescribing patterns and trends which are carefully considered by Government and other agencies.

Data is published by Information Services Division on the number of people referred to psychological therapies and starting treatment each quarter, Psychological Therapies Waiting Times In NHSScotland, as well as on the level of prescribing for mental health published on an annual basis, Medicines used in Mental Health, which includes the level of prescribing for anti-depressants. These reports are available online at http://www.isdscotland.org/Publications/. The Scottish Government has also published “Key Information on the use of Antidepressants in Scotland” which can be found online at: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00456540.pdf.

Question reference: S5W-07162

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have hepatitis C, and how many of them have been reviewed for treatment.

The latest Health Protection Scotland estimate from 2015 is that there were 35,900 people in Scotland living with chronic hepatitis C.

Approximately 8,600 people have been initiated on Hepatitis C Virus therapy since the launch of Scotland’s Hepatitis C Action Plan Phase II in 2008. This has contributed to a significant fall in the total number of infected people in Scotland, a reduction from a peak of 39,000 in 2009.

Question reference: S5W-07161

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made in delivering a treatment pathway for people with hepatitis C.

Through substantial financial investment and the implementation of successive strategies to improve diagnosis and treatment pathways, Scotland has achieved one of the most effective whole-system approaches to Hepatitis C in the world.

The success of our approach is demonstrated by the decline in Hepatitis C Virus-related liver failure in Scotland from 156 cases in 2014 to 121 in 2015, a 22% reduction. If this trend continues, the Scottish Government is on track to achieve its strategic goal to reduce such disease presentation by 75% by 2020.

Question reference: S5O-00736

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that schools have adequate numbers of support staff.

Question reference: S5W-06880

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that Edinburgh's Inverleith Medical Practice will close this summer; what discussions it has had with NHS Lothian regarding this, and how it will support NHS Lothian to ensure that alternative GP services are provided for people registered with the practice.

The Scottish Government expects Health Boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to ensure that all patients have access to GP services. Edinburgh’s Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Lothian and the team at the practice are working together to ensure that Inverleith Medical Practice patients continue to receive safe, effective and timely care.

NHS Lothian has made the Scottish Government aware of concerns around particular recruitment issues in Lothian which will be taken into account as the 2017 GMS contract negotiations. Additionally as part of the Primary Care Fund we have invested over £2 million to test a range of GP recruitment and retention initiatives, including within Lothian taking forward an early career GP fellowship.

In 2017-18 the Scottish Government has committed £72 million of investment for improvements to primary care and GP services, going towards an additional £500 million being invested in this area each year by the end of this Parliament. This commitment will mean that by 2021-22, for the first time, more than half of the NHS frontline spending will be in our Community Health Service.

Question reference: S5W-06952

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many convictions there have been involving cases of people shining (a) laser pens and (b) other laser devices at transport operators in each year since 1999, broken down by transport type.

The information requested cannot be identified from the Criminal Proceedings database. Offences involving cases of people shining (a) laser pens and (b) other laser devices at transport operators would be prosecuted under either the common law offence of culpable and reckless conduct or, with regards to aircraft, as a contravention of a statutory Air Navigation Order. In addition, legislation does not separately identify lasers from other lights and our database does not contain further detail with regards to the common law offence.

The Scottish Government holds information on the number of convictions under the air navigation order 2009 (Article 222). The following table contains data on convictions for offences relating to endangering aircraft and lights which dazzle or distract.

	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2014-15	2015-16
THE AIR NAVIGATION ORDER 2009 ARTICLE 222	1	1	2	1	1

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database.