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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-36215

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 5 May 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have received free personal and nursing care since the policy was introduced.

Official statistics confirming the number of individuals who have received free personal and nursing care since 2008-09 are shown in the table below.

Individuals may receive care across both settings within the same year and/ or receive care across in either setting in multiple years.

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Number of self-funders receiving FPNC / FPC payments (aged 65+) or FNC payments (all ages) in Care Homes*	9,640	9,380	9,550	9,720	9,580	9,840	9,910	9,870	10,390	10,120
Number of people aged 65+ receiving FPC at home*	44,200	46,660	46,950	47,010	47,170	47,810	46,750	46,910	45,660	47,070

* data source Free personal and nursing care, Scotland, 2017-18 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Question reference: S5W-36221

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 April 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have received a medical prescription since charges for these began to be phased out in 2008.

Information on number of patients receiving prescriptions prior to April 2009 is not available centrally since Community Health Index (CHI) numbers were not widely recorded in the prescribing systems at that time. Consequently, patient numbers cannot be calculated for this period.

Table 1 contains the number of patients with a paid prescription by financial year from financial year 2009-2010 to financial year 2020-2021 (partial year)

Paid Financial Year	Number of Patients
2009-10	3,981,815
2010-11	4,047,306
2011-12	4,132,694
2012-13	4,190,194
2013-14	4,209,457
2014-15	4,235,198
2015-16	4,241,495
2016-17	4,233,408
2017-18	4,220,947
2018-19	4,213,039
2019-20	4,217,893
2020-21 p	3,721,542

Source: Public Health Scotland, PIS (Prescribing data)

p – partial financial year, data available until December 2020

Table 2 – Total number of patients with a paid prescription from April 2009 to December 2020.

Total number of patients April 2009 - Dec 2020

6,515,438

Please note that the patient count in table 2 is higher than the population of Scotland as this counts individual patients across a ten-year period and will include patients who have subsequently died or left the country. Patients will receive prescriptions in multiple years and as such the same patient is counted for each year they received a prescription in Table 1. In Table 2 a patient is only counted once.

Question reference: S5W-36217

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have received a free bus pass since 2007-08, broken down by local authority area.

The National Concessionary Travel Scheme provides eligible applicants free bus travel through the National Entitlement Card (NEC).

The Improvement Service is responsible for the management of the NEC, the application process and provides overall governance for the data management of cardholders.

Therefore, Transport Scotland does not have access to the information requested but the Improvement Service should be able to provide it, and they can be contacted at digitalpublicservices@improvementservice.org.uk

Question reference: S5W-36214

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many students from Scotland have received free university tuition since 2007-08.

Analysis of data from the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) shows that almost 600,000 higher education students have benefited from free tuition between 2007-08 and 2019-20.

Information on the number of students benefitting from free tuition each year can be found in the annual SAAS statistics publication – Higher Education Student Support in Scotland. A link to the relevant section of the SAAS website can be found here: National Statistics Publications (saas.gov.uk)

Question reference: S5O-05097

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 March 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to conserve and grow Scotland’s natural assets.

Question reference: S5W-35514

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 25 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking following the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency's (MHRA) review of the use of UK plasma for fractionation.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has advised Ministers that, following its detailed review in 2020, the Commission on Human Medicines has recommended that UK plasma can be used for production of immunoglobulin medicines as they are satisfied that the risk of transmission of variant CJD (vCJD) via immunoglobulins manufactured from UK plasma is now negligible. The MHRA is now the sole regulator for medicines and the agency responsible for the licensing of medicinal products in the UK.

For this reason, Ministers across the UK have agreed to lift the current ban on using UK plasma for fractionation, which was introduced in 1998 as a vCJD risk mitigation measure. All other existing vCJD risk mitigation measures will remain in place.

This means plasma from donations given in the UK will now be able to be used to produce medicinal immunoglobulin products to treat patients in Scotland and the rest of the UK. This should improve the security of supplies of these medicines in future.

The Scottish Government will now work closely with the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service to review options for the collection and use of plasma from donors in Scotland in future.

Question reference: S5O-05087

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much the finance secretary has allocated to support outdoor education centres during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5O-05022

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assistance it gives to the development of new railway infrastructure.

Question reference: S5W-35110

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 February 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jeane Freeman on 10 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether there are any plans to further develop the Protect Scotland app.

Close to 2 million people have already downloaded Protect Scotland, and almost 40,000 users have been advised to self-isolate by the app. However, due to the anonymous nature of the app to date those who have only been asked to self-isolate via the app – and have not been identified via the traditional contact tracing process – have not been able to use the app to provide proof for any claim for self-isolation support payments. Following careful consideration from 10 February we will introduce a mechanism for unique self-isolation certificates to be generated. These can be sent to employers or to Local Authorities in support of an application for a Self-Isolation Support Grant.

The process being applied is already live in Northern Ireland, has been ratified by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and is designed to minimise the risk of fraud.

At the same time, following a previous announcement by Apple, we will make Protect Scotland available on older iPhones. Members will recall the frustration of many users of older iPhones who were unable to use the app. Apple have now made the Exposure Notification System available on these older phones, and from 10 February Protect Scotland will be available for download onto the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6.

Question reference: S5O-05003

Asked by: David Torrance, MSP for Kirkcaldy, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to coastal communities to mitigate the impact of climate change and reduce the risk of flooding.