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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: S6O-01242

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support the mental health and wellbeing of officers and staff within Police Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-01160

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the roll-out of superfast broadband.

Question reference: S6O-01140

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of Scotland’s Welcome Hubs for Ukrainian refugees.

Question reference: S6O-01104

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting farmers to utilise new technological advances.

Question reference: S6O-01045

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of its international offices.

Question reference: S6O-00987

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is progressing with the replacement of unsafe cladding on tall buildings.

Question reference: S6O-00949

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to make best use of their cultural attractions and facilities.

Question reference: S6W-06772

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve awareness of brain tumour symptoms.

We welcomed the opportunity to participate in the first Less Survivable Cancers Awareness Day and joined the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce in raising the profile of less survivable cancers, including neurological cancers, through our video of support on twitter.

We know that the earlier cancer is detected the greater the chance of survival, this is particularly important across rapidly-advancing diseases like the less survivable cancers, which include brain tumours. Our Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme adopts a whole-systems approach to diagnosing and treating cancer as early as possible. This £44m programme received an additional £20m in August 2021 and is being developed and supported by a new Early Cancer Diagnosis Programme Board.

Scotland’s first three Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (ECDC) are now live in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Fife. These Centres provide primary care with a new referral route for patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer (including weight loss, fatigue and nausea), which do not meet Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer for specific cancer types, including brain tumours.

Question reference: S6W-06768

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the number of clinical nurse specialists who specialise in brain tumours, and what steps NHS Scotland is taking to ensure that all brain tumour patients have access to a named clinical nurse specialist.

Information on the number of brain tumour specialist nurses is not held centrally.

As part of the National Cancer Plan, we are providing up to £2.5 million to NHS boards to support 12 pilot programmes across Scotland to deliver a single point of contact for cancer patients. These points of contact will support patients throughout their journey to discuss questions or anxieties related to their clinical care from the point of diagnosis.

Question reference: S6W-06973

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take in response to reports that over 240,000 calls to the NHS 24 111 number were unanswered between September 2021 and January 2022, which represents an average of over 48,000 calls per month.

NHS 24 aims to provide high standards of care and despite the substantial increase in demand placed on the Service by the outbreak of COVID-19, NHS 24 continues to provide a highly effective, safe triage system to the people of Scotland.

As a result of this increased demand, and changes to service delivery, we have increased funding to NHS 24 by over £20m this year for additional recruitment and the addition of a new call centre in Dundee, which opened in December 2021.

This is supporting the additional recruitment of 575 full time equivalent call handlers and 140 full time equivalent clinicians to date, including through the recently established 24/7 mental health hub.

Calls to the 111 Service can be abandoned for a variety of reasons, including telephony providers ending calls after a period of time or patients choosing to end the call after being connected and hearing the options available to them. These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform, or contacting another area of the health service better placed to meet their needs.

NHS 24 is undertaking a piece of work to evaluate abandoned calls and determine how many of these callers are accessing other advice/support as directed and how many are re-dialling the Service after their call has been cut off by telephony providers or they have hung up the call. This will involve working closely with telephony provider and significant engagement with callers to the Service and will help the Service reduce instances of abandoned calls.