The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1225 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
That would be very helpful. Thank you.
My next question is for Stephen Lea-Ross. Tess White asked about numbers. What are the numbers of physician associates in primary care in the Highlands or in other rural settings?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
But that number is growing.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
What is the role of a physician associate in primary care?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Potentially. I suppose that the question is about getting that knowledge into communities that traditionally do not have it, so that they are better informed and are able to champion their own health.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I, too, will pick up on Ruth Maguire’s point about menopause. Being a GP, I am lucky enough to go to multiple different practices. In my experience—although Ruth said that she does not like us giving examples—people in the better-off areas in which I work know about menopause. They come in, having done some reading and thought about it, and having decided that it is likely that that is what is going on. We then have a discussion about menopause, whether it is an appropriate diagnosis and what treatments may be appropriate.
Those from more deprived areas do not come in like that. I have not seen a huge shift in terms of women in deprived areas coming in with more knowledge about menopause. You said earlier that menopause is now more spoken of, but is that what we are seeing? Is that happening in better-off areas rather than in deprived areas? If that is the case, how do we get the message to those women in deprived areas?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I will ask about alcohol services. When the committee put out a call for views, some of the biggest respondents talked about alcohol services. Obviously, you will be aware—as everyone is—of the large number of alcohol deaths in Scotland. What increases or improvements have there been in alcohol services in rural areas?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I am sorry, but can I pick you up on that? What if there were, say, a vaccine delivery system that lots of GPs in the Highlands would like to take on, but the health board said that they were not allowed to? Are you saying that they would be allowed to deliver that vaccine programme?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
From “Women’s Health Plan”, it seems that there are very large poverty-related disparities in breast and cervical screening rates. Why do you think that is, and what work is being done or can be done to ensure that we even that up?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My final question about physician associates is really important. If you look at some material that is coming out, physician associates are talking about being GPs. Undifferentiated patients are being seen by physician associates, who, although they have a degree and two years of training, do not have what a senior nurse, such as an advanced nurse practitioner, who has done many years to be at the point where they are seeing someone, would have.
With the difficulty in recruiting in rural areas, are we in danger of seeing a two-tier health service, where compared to people in better-off areas, people who live in rural or deprived areas are more likely to see a physician associate than to see a general practitioner?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Sorry—forgive me, but a lot of women will not present because they are not aware that it could be menopause and that that is something that we could very easily treat.