- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to work with all relevant policy areas to ensure preventative measures are embedded in all aspects of respiratory care.
Answer
The Respiratory Care Action Plan contains broad commitments from a wide range of areas including increasing uptake of vaccines, ensuring people live in warm homes and improvement of air quality. We have made progress across a number of areas under these commitments, such as the Four Nations approach to tobacco.
Along with obesity, smoking represents a chief threat to Scotland's public health and we remain committed to a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034 and welcome the re-introduction of the UK-wide Tobacco and Vapes Bill to UK Parliament, which will help us to achieve our ambitious target.
The Bill will gradually increase the age of sale for tobacco products and provide powers to legislate on vape flavours, displays, packaging, as well introduce an advertising ban for vapes and nicotine products.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to work towards a core respiratory data set.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-34909 on 4 March 2025. We recognise the importance of having access to meaningful data in relation to respiratory services, in 2023 we provided Public Health Scotland with £60,000 to undertake a scoping exercise with a view to developing a respiratory audit programme. Now that the budget for 2025-26 has been passed by Parliament, we aim to progress this in the current financial year.
All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to support wider workforce planning activity to develop innovative, sustainable workforce models in respiratory services.
Answer
A significant aspect of our pulmonary rehabilitation improvement work was to support the specialist respiratory workforce. This work is now being taken forward by a small group within the Respiratory Speciality Delivery Group. We also continue to work with many types of clinical advisors on delivering improvements to respiratory care and much of this is related to workforce.
The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering the National Workforce Strategy (Health and social care: national workforce strategy - gov.scot) and achieving the overall vision for “A sustainable, skilled workforce with attractive career choices and fair work where all are respected and valued for the work they do”. Whilst no formal update has yet been published, significant progress has been made in a number of areas and we remain committed to providing a fuller update to the strategy at an appropriate time. Whilst the Strategy does not set out operational workforce planning requirements, it states how we are directing policy to support the achievement of our workforce.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been diagnosed with a lung condition since the publication of the Respiratory Care Action Plan.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 10 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of what the potential impact on hospital audiology and ear, nose and throat (ENT) services waiting lists would be, if all eligible adults with age-related hearing loss were treated in primary care audiology instead
Answer
Audiology is considered as a clinical priority area and the Scottish Government remains committed to its vision for an integrated and community-based hearing service in Scotland.
Whilst our response to the Independent Review of Audiology in Scotland is implemented, we will continue to work with the NHS, Third Sector and private providers to identify and cost an appropriate model of community care for any future service reform and ensure that the voices of those with lived experience inform this work.
Scottish Government officials and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery national planned care team meet monthly with Chief Operating Officer and / or Acute Directors from all Health Boards to review performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including ENT.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 7 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the announcement of interim placement care home beds in January 2023, how many placement care home beds were purchased, and what the cost was per bed.
Answer
216 people were discharged to an interim care home bed placement through the 2023 interim care beds funding. The scheme was open between 10 January and 31 March 2023. The average cost per placement was £1108.22. This varied by placement in practice dependant on length of stay.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on NHS pay negotiations for 2025-26.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2025
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to improve and simplify access to appropriate diagnostic tests for respiratory conditions and explore the use of high quality, consistent spirometry testing and chest and lung CT scans.
Answer
Improved access to diagnostic tests remains a wider commitment for the Scottish Government and we are working closely with Primary Care colleagues to determine ways to improve spirometry.
The Scottish Government has established a Scottish Expert Advisory Group to support the work of the UK National Screening Committee Lung Task Group and inform the implementation of a targeted lung cancer screening programme for Scotland.
Introducing a new screening programme such as Chest and Lung CT scanning is inherently complex, and the required evidence and information must be fully developed before implementation begins. This is likely to take several years for each UK nation.
The Scottish Government-funded LungScot study, led by the University of Edinburgh, provided further information on the feasibility of lung screening and the influences of sociodemographic and other patient characteristics. The Scottish Expert Advisory Group is incorporating these findings into their business case which will inform the next steps towards implementation.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to ensure that people with respiratory conditions have access to tools, resources and information that support them to manage their own condition.
Answer
We have recently published the Quality Prescribing Guide for Improvement that aims to keep people at the centre of their treatment, and promote safe, evidenced based, sustainable prescribing.
The guide was developed by a wide range of stakeholders including experts in the field and lived experiences. The guide is intended to support clinicians across the multidisciplinary team and people living with respiratory conditions in shared decision-making and the effective use of medicines and offers practical advice and options for tailoring care to the needs and preferences of individuals
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what plans are in place for a new Respiratory Care Action Plan when the current plan comes to an end in 2026.
Answer
The Respiratory Care Action Plan has another year left in its current lifespan. We will continue to implement the commitments in the Plan over the coming year, alongside our work to explore a new long term conditions strategy to ensure equitable and sustainable access to the services that all people with long term conditions need, while still allowing for targeted action on condition-specific care and support where appropriate. We will take the progress of this work into account as we consider the best way to continue work to improve care and support for people with respiratory conditions in the future.
