Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
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.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
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.
Search by MSP
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.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
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.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
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:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
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.
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Maree Todd
No. That was perfect.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Maree Todd
As I understand it, it is the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency that grants licences for those products on a United Kingdom-wide basis. David Bishop might want to come in on this but, as I understand it, the transvaginal mesh situation prompted a review of all those processes. I think that on-going work is still being done on that.
Our feeling in the Scottish Government is that the MHRA’s procedures should be absolutely robust and that there were lessons to be learned from that situation. We are keen to ensure that those lessons are learned.
I invite David Bishop to give some more information on that front.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Maree Todd
That would be a challenging undertaking retrospectively. However, on the use of mesh in other sites for gynaecological procedures that was not subject to the halt, the high-vigilance protocol has a number of procedures in place that ensure that that is perfectly possible. There is documentation of all the procedures and complications and on the reporting of complications on an agreed database. Crucially, documentation is given to every single patient who is treated with mesh that details their procedure and the mesh product used, along with the name of the patient. Therefore, in future, the precise situation that you have outlined will be less likely to arise in gynaecological procedures in which mesh is used.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Maree Todd
I am not sure how that would happen, given the scale of the procedures, with 5,000 to 6,000 per year being carried out since the 1980s. However, as Mr O’Kelly outlined, patients should first present at their GP.
People must be listened to, because the key point that has come out through all the testimonies is that people do not feel listened to. We must learn from the transvaginal mesh incident—people’s concerns have to be taken seriously and acted on appropriately. In many areas, there will be a multidisciplinary team in place, as Mr O’Kelly outlined. There is a complexity in dealing with mesh complications, and the multidisciplinary team and clinical networks will together look at each individual case. However, it must be straightforward for patients to access that level of expertise when they find themselves in the situation that Mr Kidd describes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Maree Todd
Thank you. I am grateful to the committee for having me here today. At the outset, I want to acknowledge the efforts of those who have brought forward the petition; I commend them for doing so.
As members know, we have taken decisive action on transvaginal mesh. That action is well documented elsewhere, so it is important today to focus on the use of mesh in other situations.
We are acutely aware that there is concern about the use of mesh in other sites, not least from those who are experiencing complications. I am very sorry to read of the impact that those have had on individuals and their families. I was sorry to read in a submission on this petition that people felt that their symptoms were “dismissed” when they presented for help. Some people did not feel that they were informed of the risks of the procedure that they underwent, and it is only natural to feel let down in those circumstances.
If I may, I will for a moment focus on the use of mesh in hernia repair, which is a very common procedure in NHS Scotland. The Scottish Government asked the Scottish health technologies group to review available evidence on the use of mesh in hernia repair, first in adult inguinal hernia and secondly in abdominal wall hernia more generally. The group published a report on adult inguinal hernia in January 2020 that concluded that, compared with non-mesh procedures, using mesh resulted in lower rates of recurrence, fewer serious adverse events and similar or lower risk of chronic pain. We await the publication of the second piece of work, which considered the more general use of mesh in hernia repair and is expected imminently.
There are, of course, other gynaecology procedures for which the use of mesh has not been halted. In those circumstances, a high-vigilance protocol is in place across the whole of NHS Scotland. It is important to remember that some of those procedures are complex and long established, with few—if any—viable alternatives. To suspend their use would leave a cohort of people with limited or no treatment options.
I know that this is a very difficult and emotive subject. I welcome being questioned on it and I want to reassure the committee and anyone watching that the Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that everyone with mesh complications gets the care and treatment that they deserve.
