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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: S6W-39572

Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to studies indicating that hyperbaric oxygen therapy may have positive effects for patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID.

The Scottish Government expects that any decisions on treatment for people affected by Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) or long COVID should be informed by current clinical guidelines.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guidance exists for the diagnosis and management of ME/CFS and for managing the long-term effects of COVID-19. These comprise NICE guidelines NG:206 and NG:188 respectively. Further information on the process by which NICE guidelines are developed can be accessed at How we develop NICE guidelines | NICE

Question reference: S6W-39588

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted a workforce assessment to identify the staff that would be required to deliver thrombectomy services on a 24/7 basis.

The Scottish Government has not conducted a national workforce assessment for the staffing requirements of a 24/7 thrombectomy service, although regional planning groups have previously assessed the staff in various roles required to deliver a 24/7 thrombectomy service.

Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for thrombectomy service expansion, and this will include assessment of workforce requirements.

Work is also progressing with a review of how the stroke specialist decision-making workforce works nationally, using telemedicine and cross board working, to improve resilience in rotas and increase capacity to be able to support hyperacute stroke care, such as thrombectomy, out of hours.

Question reference: S6W-39593

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of stroke patients who have experienced worsened clinical outcomes due to delays in receiving thrombectomy or thrombolysis treatment arising from limited service hours.

The Scottish Government does not hold information regarding clinical outcomes in relation to delays in receiving hyperacute stroke care. We remain committed to implementing a high quality and clinically safe thrombectomy service that is available across Scotland whenever people need it.

Scottish Government officials and NHS planners are working at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for service expansion.

Question reference: S6W-39585

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have received mechanical thrombectomy treatment in each NHS board area in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-39571

Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for long-term health conditions.

The Scottish Government recognises that hyperbaric oxygen therapy may offer benefits for some individuals living with long-term health conditions. Decisions about treatment are made by clinicians in consultation with patients, based on clinical need and the best available evidence.

NHS Boards are responsible for determining which therapies to provide, taking into account national policy, local priorities, and the needs of their populations. We expect all care to be safe, effective, person-centred, and sustainable.

Question reference: S6W-39589

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients in each of the last five years were assessed as eligible for mechanical thrombectomy within the recommended six-hour treatment window but did not receive the procedure due to the unavailability of local thrombectomy services.

Question reference: S6W-39813

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many Significant Adverse Event Reviews have been commissioned for a Category I adverse event in each year since 2021, broken down by NHS board.

The data requested is gathered by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and is provided in the following table.

Category 1 SAERs commissioned from Jan 2021 - Jun 2025
Board	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
NHS 24	< 5	8	< 5	10	< 5
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	46	49	46	56	34
NHS Borders	12	18	10	15	12
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	47	47	40	42	25
NHS Fife	46	68	66	59	33
NHS Forth Valley	18	15	28	19	12
NHS Grampian	23	21	21	31	20
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	244	272	292	317	117
NHS Highland	20	22	26	29	20
NHS Lanarkshire	50	84	107	99	64
NHS Lothian	71	91	80	94	20
NHS National Waiting Times Centre	27	18	21	12	< 5
NHS Orkney	< 5	6	8	< 5	< 5
NHS Shetland	< 5 in each year
NHS Tayside	24	22	36	40	16
NHS Western Isles	< 5 in each year
Scottish Ambulance Service	62	46	64	22	7
State Hospital	< 5 in each year
Total	700	788	852	857	389

Notes

1.The data is sourced from Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s (HIS) Significant Adverse Event Review National Notification System.

2.The data provided for 2025 is for the period from January to June 2025 only.

3.Cases where the volume is less than 5 are withheld to comply with HIS' disclosure control protocols.

4.HIS published the revised ‘Learning from adverse events through reporting and review: A national framework for Scotland’ in February 2025. Each NHS board is responsible for applying the National Framework in the context of its own local incident reporting systems and governance processes. Therefore, there remains some variation in how the National Framework is applied in practice and it is not possible to compare data on a like-for-like basis across NHS boards.

5.The notification data refers to the commissioning of SAERs for category 1 events, and not the total number of category 1 events.

Question reference: S6W-39812

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people resident in Scotland have received NHS treatment in the rest of the UK in each year since 2021.

The following table shows the total number of admissions across England, Wales and Northern Ireland for patients normally residing in Scotland, for each financial year since 2021 where complete data is available. Consideration should be given to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic when interpreting these data.

The total admissions includes emergency and elective admission episodes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period. The figures have been rounded to the nearest 5.

Financial year	Total Admissions
21-22	5,110
22-23	5,380
23-24	5,610

Question reference: S6W-39702

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many offences involving air weapons were recorded between (a) 2009 and 2016 and (b) 2017 and 2024.

The following table shows the number of offences involving the alleged use of an air weapon (where identified) between 2009-10 and 2021-22. This has been split into two time periods, 2009-10 to 2014-15 and 2015-16 to 2021-22. The reason for this specific split is the introduction of an improved methodology for collating these statistics from 2015-16 onwards. As such the two time periods are not directly comparable as the earlier one is likely to contain a small degree of underestimation.. Further information on the change in methodology and the presentation of data by single years is available at Recorded Crimes and Offences Involving Firearms, Scotland, 2020-21 and 2021-22 - gov.scot.

The latest Crimes and offences involving a firearm Official Statistics relate to 2021-22. Future updates will follow the conclusion of a further review by analysts from Scottish Government and Police Scotland into the methodology for producing this data. Unlike other crime-based official statistics, the current approach relies on the manual review of crime records to identify relevant cases, which is resource intensive and requires significant time to complete. An update on the outcome of this work is planned for early Autumn, and users can register for this through the SCOTSTAT network (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotstat-register-guidance/)

Crimes involving the alleged use of an air weapon 2009-10 to 2021-22

Period	Number of crimes
2009-10 to 2014-15	1,394
2015-16 to 2021-22	783

Source: Recorded Crimes and Offences involving Firearms, Scotland

Question reference: S6W-39720

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work that it is doing to determine whether it will introduce a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation.

As outlined in my letter to the Criminal Justice Committee on 22 July 2025, I remain committed to giving the proposal to introduce a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation serious consideration. As part of that process our Programme for Government detailed that we will carry out a comprehensive assessment of the relevant law in order to determine next steps. I will keep Parliament updated as this work progresses.