Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-00763

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what plans it has to introduce legislation to support veterans during this parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6O-00765

Asked by: Paul McLennan, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis has been undertaken of the impact of Brexit on exports from Scotland to the European Union.

Question reference: S6W-06240

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many years of funding are in place to pay for the free school meals programme in its entirety, and whether this funding is sufficient to ensure that local authorities will not need to use their funding to deliver the policy.

The 2022-23 draft budget provides £42.2 million to provide universal free school lunches to all children in primaries 4, 5 and special schools to 5 during school term-time. This is in addition to the £53 million per year for universal provision for pupils in primary 1 to 3 which has been in place since 2015. The 2022-23 draft budget includes a £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children (P1-P7) later in the parliamentary term. We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for the further expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year.

The draft budget also provides £21.75 million to provide support to free school meals eligible families during the school holidays.

Question reference: S6W-06217

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support the wider roll-out of the Glasgow-based OPERA study on heart failure diagnosis across all NHS boards.

The Heart Disease Action Plan outlines our commitment to exploring innovative models of care for cardiac diagnosis. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan Funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a second NHS board to implement aspects of the OPERA study within its local service provision.

The learning from this will be fed into ongoing work by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery to better understand the opportunities for implementation of OPERA in other NHS Boards, through pathfinder work via the new Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.

Question reference: S6W-06219

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will adopt the recommendations in the Heart Valve Voice report, State of the Nation, on reducing variation in heart valve disease treatment and waiting times for heart valve disease detection, diagnosis and treatment.

Key recommendations in the Heart Valve Voice report State of the Nation included:

1) collecting standardised data for HVD.

2) focus on HVD in campaigns to raise awareness of disease in women.

3) developing an optimal patient pathway for HVD.

4) improving access to echocardiography.

1) The Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) clearly sets out our priority for the effective use of high-quality, standardised data to support clinical decision-making, understand patient outcomes and enable better service-planning. In April 2021, we commissioned Public Health Scotland to develop the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme. We have committed more than £1.5m over five years to support this transformative change in access to, and use of, data to drive improvement in cardiac services.

2) We have made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, including the launch of an information campaign on women’s heart health. Future development of work in this area will be informed by the lived experience of women with heart disease.

3) Priority 2 within the Heart Disease Action Plan makes clear our commitment to developing nationally agreed pathways of care for all cardiac conditions. This work is underway.

4) We recognise the importance of improving access to echocardiography and are taking action to address this. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a project exploring how to improve access to echocardiography.

Question reference: S6W-06241

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what investigation it has undertaken to understand the average cost per child to deliver the free school meals programme, and whether this investigation included consideration of any need for additional (a) capital works where there are insufficient eating spaces and (b) serving and cleaning staff, in addition to the cost of the additional meals.

The Scottish Government has been working in partnership with the Association of Directors of Education, COSLA and partners to establish the full delivery and financial requirements in support of the expansion of free school meals. Through this engagement, it has been confirmed that there is a requirement for capital and resource investment in order to support the expansion, including for catering and dining.

In addition to £53 million per year for universal provision in primary 1-3, the 2022-23 budget includes £42.2 million of revenue funding for the expansion of primary 4, 5 and special schools, and £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children during in the parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners in local authorities to plan for the expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year. This work will ensure the expansion can be delivered equitably across all schools, in all areas, whilst maintaining high quality lunch provision for pupils.

Question reference: S6W-06218

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will assess the feasibility of conducting stethoscope checks and placing echocardiograms in community care settings in order to improve the detection and diagnosis of heart valve disease.

Where it is clinically appropriate to do so, patients of all ages will be examined with a stethoscope to listen for breathing and heart sounds. They may also have ECG electrical recordings of their heart rate, blood tests and have access to other investigations such as echocardiograms, rhythm monitors and blood pressure recordings, should these be required.

The Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) outlines our commitment to exploring innovative models of care for the diagnosis of heart disease, including a focus on improving access to echocardiography in the most appropriate setting for local needs.

Question reference: S6W-06282

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the First Minister’s COVID-19 Update on 1 February 2022, what action it is taking to extend "the protection of vaccination to all countries as quickly as possible".

The Scottish Government recognises that COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis, leaving no part of the world unaffected. Although Scotland is not a member of the COVAX scheme, we will continue engaging with the UK Government on that matter. On 8 December, the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister to urge the UK government to end its opposition at the World Trade Organisation and to join over 100 countries who are now supportive of a temporary Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver.

We have also provided international development support to our partner countries to support their COVID-19 responses, including vaccine preparedness.

In December 2020 we provided international development funding to support vaccine preparedness and delivery, including £2M to UNICEF in 2020 to help vaccine distribution, roll-out and online healthcare education in our partner countries.

In September 2021, we provided £250,000 from our international development fund to leverage the provision to our partner countries of £11.2 million worth of PPE – our single biggest ever donation – to aid COVID responses as part of our strategic response.

In February 2022 we provided £1.5m to UNICEF to support equal access to COVID-19 vaccines in our partner countries. The funds will support vaccination programmes in Rwanda, Zambia and Malawi, their provision of safe oxygen supplies, and help the agency deliver equipment, resources and technical support in response to the pandemic.

Question reference: S6W-05535

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings it has had with NHS board chief executives to discuss contingency and resilience planning in relation to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, and when these took place.

Since the emergence of the Omicron, the Scottish Government has undertaken a series of regular meetings with NHS Chief Executives to discuss contingency and resilience planning. These include meetings that were Chaired by the NHS Scotland Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer as well as regular meetings between health and social care officials and NHS Scotland Chief Executives. The System Response Group meetings also include representations from wider stakeholder interests and Local Government.

I have held regular update meetings to discuss System Pressures to which all Boards are invited. I have also held meetings with COSLA and officials every Monday to receive updates on the Winter Package.

Finally, I held a number of meetings with specific Local Authorities, Health Boards and HSCPs on a one to one basis where the need arose.

These meeting dates are detailed in the following table:

	Meeting	Date
Superseded by NRG (Chair, COO, NHS Scotland)	Healthcare Planning Group	06 Dec 21
	Healthcare Planning Group	07 Dec 21
	Healthcare Planning Group	08 Dec 21
	Healthcare Planning Group	09 Dec 21
	Healthcare Planning Group	10 Dec 21
	Healthcare Planning Group	15 Dec 21
NRG: Ongoing meeting (Chair, COO NHS Scotland) (Moving to once every 2 weeks as of 08 Feb 22)	National Response Group (NRG)	21 Dec 21
	National Response Group (NRG)	29 Dec 21
	National Response Group (NRG)	05 Jan 22
	National Response Group (NRG)	11 Jan 22
	National Response Group (NRG)	18 Jan 22
	National Response Group (NRG)	25 Jan 22
	National Response Group (NRG)	01 Feb 22
	National Response Group (NRG)	08 Feb 22
SRG: Ongoing meeting (Chair, CEO, NHS Scotland and DG HSC) (Moving to once every 2 weeks as of 03 Feb 22)	System Response Group (SRG)	04 Nov 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	11 Nov 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	18 Nov 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	25 Nov 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	02 Dec 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	09 Dec 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	16 Dec 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	23 Dec 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	30 Dec 21
	System Response Group (SRG)	06 Jan 22
	System Response Group (SRG)	13 Jan 22
	System Response Group (SRG)	20 Jan 22
	System Response Group (SRG)	27 Jan 22
	System Response Group (SRG)	03 Feb 22
System Pressures. Regular meeting running on a once or twice weekly basis. Meeting attended by NHS CE’s, Local Authorities, SG Senior Clinicians and COSLA (Moving to once a week as of 03 Feb 22)	System Pressures	22 Dec 21
	System Pressures	29 Dec 21
	System Pressures	06 Jan 22
	System Pressures	10 Jan 22
	System Pressures	13 Jan 22
	System Pressures	17 Jan 22
	System Pressures	20 Jan 22
	System Pressures	24 Jan 22
	System Pressures	27 Jan 22
	System Pressures	31 Jan 22
	System Pressures	03 Feb 22
COSLA / Officials	Winter Package	06 Dec 21
	Winter Package	13 Dec 21
	Winter Package	20 Dec 21
	Winter Package	10 Jan 21
	Winter Package	17 Jan 21
	Winter Package	24 Jan 21
	Winter Package	31 Jan 21
Organisation specific meetings	NHS GGC and Glasgow City Council	24 Nov 21
	NHS Fife and Fife Council	01 Dec 21
	NHS Lothian and Edinburgh City Council	01 Dec 21
	NHS GGC and Glasgow City Council	01 Dec 21
	NHS Lanarkshire and NL&SL councils	01 Dec 21
	NHS Highland, Highland HSCP and Argyll & Bute Council	02 Dec 21
	NHS Ayrshire and Arran and North & South Ayrshire Council	02 Dec 21
	NHS Forth Valley, Stirling Council, Falkirk Council, Clackmannanshire Council and Forth Valley HSCP	02 Dec 21
	NHS Lanarkshire and NL&SL councils	06 Dec 01
	NHS Lothian and Edinburgh City Council	06 Dec 01
	NHS GGC and Glasgow City Council	09 Dec 01
	NHS Forth Valley, Stirling Council, Falkirk Council, Clackmannanshire Council and Forth Valley HSCP	09 Dec 01
	NHS Fife and Fife Council	09 Dec 01
	NHS Glasgow, NHS Lothian, Edinburgh City Council and Glasgow City Council	14 Dec 01
	NHS Lothian and Edinburgh City Council	15 Dec 01
	NHS Ayrshire and Arran and North & South Ayrshire Council	16 Dec 01
	NHS Lanarkshire and NL&SL councils	16 Dec 01
	NHS Lanarkshire	04 Jan 22
	NHS Lanarkshire	21 Jan 22
	NHS Golden Jubilee	27 Jan 22
	NHS GGC	02 Feb 22
	NHS Forth Valley	07 Feb 22

Question reference: S6W-06092

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government by what date it estimates that every eligible child living in (a) Argyll and Bute, (b) Highland, (c) Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, (d) Orkney Islands, (e) Shetland Islands, and (f) Moray council areas, will have a free laptop or tablet in their possession.

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