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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S5W-22632

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 30 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time is for people with blood cancer to receive their first treatment following diagnosis.

The Scottish Government does not collate waiting times for all haematological cancers. However, Lymphoma is included in the current cancer waiting times standards.

Latest published data from Q4 2018 show that 96.1% of Lymphoma patients waiting less than 62 days from urgent referral to first treatment with the median wait being 35 days. In addition once a decision to treat has been made the median wait to first treatment for lymphoma patients was 2 days.

Question reference: S5W-22633

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 30 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to reports that an estimated one in three people with blood cancer see their GP at least three times before being referred for diagnosis.

The Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer were revised in January 2019 and support Primary Care clinicians in identifying patients who are most likely to have cancer and therefore require urgent assessment by a specialist.

The Detect Cancer Early programme first pan-tumour campaign ‘Survivors’, was launched in September 2018, was set out to target those in the most deprived areas, to reduce fear around cancer and encourage people to get checked early.

The Scottish Cancer Coalition was consulted on the campaign’s development – Bloodwise and Leukaemia Care are both members of the forum. A symptom-checker tool was developed to coincide with the campaign to increase awareness and education of possible signs and symptoms of cancer, regardless of the tumour type.

Officials continue to work closely with Health Boards to ensure that the revised referral guidelines are embedded into routine clinical practice.

Question reference: S5W-22348

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is regarding increasing coverage in cities as part of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme.

The vast majority of premises in Scotland’s cities can access fibre broadband, with coverage as high as 99.3% in Dundee and 98.6% in Edinburgh.

EU State Aid legislation requires public funding for broadband deployment only to be used in areas of market failure. In order for DSSB to be granted State Aid approval, it was necessary for the city centres of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow to be removed from the scope of the programme.

DSSB does, however, deploy to the wider city areas with around 30,500 premises in Aberdeen, 32,700 premises in Edinburgh and over 91,300 premises in Glasgow capable of accessing fibre broadband as a result of Scotland’s £400 million DSSB programme.

Dundee, Stirling, Inverness and Perth city centres are all within scope of the DSSB programme and across the Scottish Parliamentary region of Lothian, DSSB has been able to directly support access to fibre broadband to 62,944 premises and, among these, 61,282 are able to achieve speeds of 24 megabits per second or better.

In parallel with further deployment under DSSB, there continues to be significant private sector investment in broadband across Scotland’s cities with City Fibre, Virgin Media and Openreach prominent in delivery services in Edinburgh.

Question reference: S5O-03156

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of graduates from Scottish medical schools go on to work in the NHS in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-22606

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many community-based baby and child cardiac liaison nurses each NHS board has.

The requested information is not held centrally by ISD.

ISD Scotland publishes quarterly data on the NHS workforce. Nursing and Midwifery Sub Job Family data has been published on the ISD website and is available at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-03-05/Nursing-and-Midwifery.asp

Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) data has been published on the ISD website available here: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Clinical_Nurse_Specialists_S2018.xls .

ISD Scotland data on CNS categories is incomplete because of data quality concerns in a number of NHS Boards. ISD Scotland is working with these NHS Boards on their concerns.

The Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) specialty categories used nationally were historically agreed between Scottish Government and NHS Boards. At present there is no specific category for child cardiac liaison nurses.

As well as working with Boards on data quality, ISD Scotland is also reviewing the CNS definition, role and specialty categories and has confirmed that it intends to recommence the publication of CNS data in December 2019.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with ISD Scotland and NHS Boards to ensure improved recording.

Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/ .

Question reference: S5W-22530

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the research by Dr Kathrin Cresswell of the University of the Edinburgh into how useful GPs, involved in a pilot study, found the new clinical decision support system.

The Scottish Government commissioned the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI) to lead on this work. It was the DHI that commissioned the University of Edinburgh to conduct this research. They have now received it and are in the process of liaising with other partners on these findings in order to prepare a formal recommendation to the Scottish Government on next steps. The Scottish Government are anticipating receiving this in May and can consider future developments at that point.

Question reference: S5W-22532

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the benefits of the new clinical decision support system were it to be rolled out throughout the NHS.

Question reference: S5W-22531

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates the timescale will be for the full roll-out of the new clinical decision support system in the NHS.

Question reference: S5W-22610

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on patients of the closure of migraine services in NHS Lothian.

Question reference: S5W-22604

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 24 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many screening appointments for each cancer type have been cancelled in each year since 2007.