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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: S4W-13821

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 22 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how much money has been confiscated by the courts in each of the last five years following convictions for (i) the illegal sale of and (ii) selling illicit tobacco.

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

WRITTEN ANSWER

22 March 2013

Index Heading: Learning and Justice

Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Scottish Labour): To ask the Scottish Government how much money has been confiscated by the courts in each of the last five years following convictions for (i) the illegal sale of and (ii) selling illicit tobacco.

(S4W-13821)

Kenny MacAskill: This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court Service (SCS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCS who will reply in writing within twenty days.

Question reference: S4O-01955

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what additional support will be provided to cities, such as Stirling, in order to ensure that adequate infrastructure is in place for the year of the homecoming.

Question reference: S4W-13535

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 19 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what arrangements have been made to ensure that (a) Healthcare Improvement Scotland and (b) the Care Commission are provided with regular reports from NHS boards summarising feedback received from patients and the public.

NHS Boards are required under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and secondary legislation to provide Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) with a copy of their annual summary of feedback, comments, concerns and complaints. The first such reports are due in the summer. In addition:

(a) To help inform their work HIS gathers intelligence from the national Patient Experience Programme, NHS Board complaints, and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) investigation reports and also through inviting patients and the public to provide comments on their experiences directly to them. HIS is also currently working closely with the SPSO on the design of the new approach to reporting and learning from adverse events, which the First Minister announced to Parliament last November 2012.

(b) A National Enquiry Line was established by the Care Inspectorate on 1 April 2011 which provides a central point to deal with general enquiries, concerns or complaints. The Care Inspectorate has also been strengthening the range of ways in which it receives and acts on information on services and in encouraging feedback on the quality of services provided. A new complaints process was introduced on 8 October 2012 with incremental changes being made until March 2013.

Both the NHS complaints process and the Care Inspectorate complaints process include provision for co-operation and joint working to resolve issues where this is appropriate.

Question reference: S4F-01268

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 March 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 March 2013

To ask the First Minister what impact reported reductions in the number of medical secretaries are having on patient care.

Question reference: S4W-13369

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list the Scottish morbidity record data for the last three years, broken down by acute hospital.

It is not possible to list individual SMR records for reasons of patient confidentiality.

The Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland collects patient level healthcare information on various Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR) schemes.

This data covers a wide range of NHS healthcare activity, including SMR00 (outpatient clinic attendance), SMR01 (acute hospital inpatient and day case activity), SMR02 (maternity hospital inpatient and day case activity). More information on ISD’s data collections is available on the ISD website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/About-ISD/Data-Collection/.

Published aggregate data based on SMR returns is available on the ISD website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/.

Overall volumes of SMRs returned are available on the Hospital Records Data Monitoring - SMR Timeliness subtopic of ISD’s website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Products-and-Services/Hospital-Records-Data-Monitoring/SMR-Timeliness/.

Question reference: S4O-01913

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has had with his health counterparts to support the development of therapeutic horticulture.

Question reference: S4W-12946

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will extend outpatient access to the specialist unit at St John's Hospital to include deaf children with mental health problems.

Generally the approach taken to serious and enduring mental illness in adults is different to the approach taken with children and young people in that there are often complexities related to the developmental process. There are different approaches to diagnosis and treatment reflecting the plasticity of the brain and fluidity of social and family factors. Child and adolescent psychiatry and clinical psychology are particular specialisms for this reason.

While deafness increases the complexity of the case and requires additional diagnosis skills and understanding, our objective is that it shouldn’t be seen to increase severity. Deaf children and young people will be treated by their local CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) team in the community with clinicians ensuring all their needs are met and calling on support from other service providers such as British Sign Language interpreters when required.

There are currently no plans to develop a specialist CAMHS solely for deaf children and young people using specialist NHS child and adolescent mental health services. Our approach to improving services over the last few years has been to shorten waiting lists, invest in more staff, and to measure the performance of services by using a wide range of indicators, with the ultimate aim being improving outcomes for patients including those with a sensory impairment. We now have over 850 specialist child and adolescent clinicians in the workforce nationally and this has been a rise of over 36% since 2008.

Question reference: S4W-12947

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many deaf children with mental health problems have been referred to specialist units in England in each year since 2010 and what the cost was.

Question reference: S4W-12874

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that the GP contract ensures that patients with multimorbidity are reviewed for multimorbidity rather than for each condition separately and that such reviews include screening for depression.

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) element of the GP contract is not designed to handle multimorbidities, other than encouraging GPs to review patients’ with more than one disease at the same time.

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which leads on development of the QOF, is looking to develop guidelines on multimorbidities aimed at the GP audience. Many NHS boards in Scotland have Enhanced Service programmes that do encourage a multimorbidity approach, including screening for depression.

GPs are expected to use their professional judgement and expertise in assessing the health and treatment of their patients, and this will include consideration of any multimorbidity or mental health factors.

Question reference: S4W-12870

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients treated with a DePuy articular surface hip replacement have been (a) identified, (b) offered a review and (c) tested for levels of cobalt and chromium ions.

This information is not held centrally. It is for NHS boards to manage patients with metal on metal hip replacements, including DePuy articular surface hip replacements, so that they receive the appropriate level care.

Scottish Government officials are working with NHS boards to ensure that the guidance issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority on the management of patients with metal on metal hip replacements is being followed.