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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-03537

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle the reported high prevalence of addiction to (a) anti-depressants and (b) other prescription drugs in the NHS Forth Valley area.

It is generally agreed that antidepressants are not classed as addictive medicines. They can, however, cause a discontinuation syndrome in someone taking them for a prolonged period of time if stopped abruptly. Prescribed medicines known to be addictive include benzodiazepines and some pain relieving medicines.

All NHS Boards monitor a range of prescribing indicators and against each they agree an appropriate action with practitioners. Drugs with the potential for addiction, such as benzodiazepines, are very commonly included in that process.

Decisions on the type of treatment to prescribe are for clinicians to make in discussion with their patients and to agree upon within the context of the patient’s long-term recovery.

All prescribing decisions should be in line with good clinical and prescribing practice, and clinicians are encouraged to review a patient’s medications regularly to ensure their continued clinical appropriateness, and to achieve the best possible health outcomes from the medicines they are prescribed.

In keeping with good clinical practice, clinicians should be providing on-going support and advice to patients who are prescribed medicines that are known to be addictive or with other long term effects. Where patients are concerned about the effects their medicines are having on their general wellbeing they should contact their GP as soon as possible and discuss alternative treatments that may be available.

Question reference: S5W-03534

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many agency nursing staff are employed by NHS (a) Fife, (b) Tayside and (c) Forth Valley, and how much this costs, broken down by each NHS board.

Information on agency nursing staff usage and costs is routinely published at

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-06-07/Bank_and_Agency_comp_M2016.xls

The latest published related to this question is reproduced in Table 1.

Table 1. Number (average whole time equivalent) and cost (£) of agency nursing and midwifery staff for financial period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016.

	Average WTE	Costs (£)
NHS Fife	14.7	1,155,144
NHS Tayside	52.4	5,062,099
NHS Forth Valley	6.6	560,916

Sources: ISD Scotland (ISD(M)18)

In 2015-16 agency nursing represented just 0.4% of the total nursing and midwifery staffing in the NHS in Scotland (276.7 WTE out of total capacity of 66,143.9 WTE).

The Scottish Government and NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) have launched a nationally coordinated programme for the effective management of all temporary staffing (Managed Staffing Network Project). The aim establish Integrated Regional and National Staff Banks which allow NHS Boards to access a shared pool of NHS staff who are flexible, appropriately qualified and experienced and provide better value for money than alternative methods of filling the gaps.

Notes:

Agency nursing and midwifery staff are employed by private organisations which respond to requests by NHSScotland.
To calculate the average WTE, 1 WTE is taken as a contribution of 37.5 hours per week x 52 = 1950 hours per year.

Question reference: S5W-03536

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress the Scottish Ambulance Service is making with regard to changes to its service.

The Scottish Ambulance Service recently undertook a rigorous review of its clinical data involving analysis of over 500,000 patient cases. The Scottish Governments Chief Medical Officer has engaged with the service to review this clinical evidence and has asked SAS to conduct a year long pilot ahead of winter this year. This pilot will focus on making improvements to clinical outcomes for patients whilst ensuring that patient safety remains the main priority.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is now in the process of taking the necessary steps to commence this pilot. An on-going review will be carried out by the Scottish Government to ensure that we are seeing the improvements to patient safety and patient outcomes that are expected.

Question reference: S5O-00326

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address the reported £42.7 million funding gap in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Question reference: S5W-03919

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Bus Investment Fund support for the Ring of Breadalbane Explorer minibus service in Perth and Kinross is for three years only; what analysis it has carried out of demand for this service, and what its position is on extending the support.

The Bus Investment Fund (BIF) ran as a challenge fund for bus related projects from 2013 to 2016 for an initial period of three years after which it would be subject to review.

The Ring of Breadalbane explorer, as part of the grant conditions, provided statistics as to the project performance. The role of the BIF was not to support projects indefinitely, rather, it gave an opportunity for new or existing projects to access a level of financial support to enable them to improve their service and to collect data. It is hoped that once funding has ended projects will either be in a stronger position to continue commercially or have enough evidence collected to enable them to bid for funding from other avenues.

Question reference: S5W-03535

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to Police Scotland to help tackle drug-related crime.

Operational decisions about measures to tackle drug-related crime are a matter for the Chief Constable, under the oversight of the Scottish Police Authority. The Scottish Government is committed to working with all its partners to reduce the damaging impacts of substance misuse. This includes the ‘Choices for Life’ schools based substance misuse education programme, delivered in partnership with Police Scotland and Young Scot.

Question reference: S5O-00294

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to minimise antibiotic resistance in livestock.

Question reference: S5O-00267

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 October 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to tackle cybercrime in light of the challenges faced by Police Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-03260

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle ScotRail's performance regarding delays to train services in Mid Scotland and Fife.

ScotRail’s performance as a whole, has fallen below the expectations of passengers, and the demanding performance targets set by Scottish Ministers. The contractual targets are intentionally challenging, demanding a consistent improvement in punctuality and reliability over the life of the franchise, leading to 92.5% of trains being at their destination on time, as measured by the rail industry’s Public Performance Measure, by April 2019. ScotRail’s current performance here nationally is 89.6% over the last twelve months, against a target for the end of the second year of the franchise of 91.3 percent.

The mid-Scotland and Fife area falls into the ‘Suburban East’ franchise sector. In this sector, ScotRail’s current performance is sitting at a moving-annual-average of 89.5 percent, against a specific target for that sector for the end of the second year of the franchise, of 92.5 percent.

Under the terms of the Franchise Agreement, Transport Scotland (an agency of the Scottish Government) requested that ScotRail provide an Improvement Plan, which will outline their plans to address performance issues and achieve their contractual targets. This was received by Transport Scotland on 16^th September, and is now being reviewed, with the actions within the plan to be monitored.

The Improvement Plan has three points of focus: infrastructure, fleet and operations:

For the infrastructure, much is being done to improve signalling and cabling:

For the fleet, the emphasis is now much more on focussed maintenance initiatives, especially for the radiators on the Class 158 rolling stock, as these have been a particular source of concern;

For the operations, a specific focus on reviewing staff and passenger behaviours on the lines which are known to facing significant levels of delay.

Question reference: S5W-03259

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 13 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason waiting time targets for treatment for cancer are reportedly not being met in Mid Scotland and Fife.

Cancer waiting times data for quarter 2 (April - June) 2016 published by ISD on 27 September 2016 show 95.7% of cancer patients across Scotland received treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat with the median wait being only six days.

Challenges remain to the 62-day pathway with known capacity pressures for diagnostic scopes and radiological investigations. The Scottish Government continues to support improved performance across NHS Scotland and are actively engaging NHS Boards where there are challenges to sustained delivery against the 62-day standard. This is backed by additional funding of £5 million in 2016-17.

Breakdown of performance by NHS board can be found in the quarterly ISD statistical publications.