- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 05 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the report published in June 2020 from the Air Quality Expert Group to DEFRA, Non-methane Volatile Organic Compounds in the UK, which showed that ethanol emissions are the largest category of Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOC) air pollutants in the UK, what proportion of NMVOCs are directly due to emissions from the Scotch whisky industry.
Answer
Emissions from casking, distillation, fermentation, other maturation and spent grain drying are not disaggregated by spirit type, due to the very low levels involved. Collectively for all spirit manufacture in Scotland, these processes contributed approximately 3% of NMVOC emissions in 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Overall NMVOC emissions in Scotland have declined by approximately 65% since 1990.
Approximately 45% of NMVOC emissions in Scotland were due to emissions from Scotch whisky maturation in 2018.
This information is also publicly available in the report 'Air Quality Pollutant Inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: 1990-2018' and the associated tables, which can be found at: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/2010220959_DA_Air_Pollutant_Inventories_1990-2018_v1.2.pdf .
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will make a commitment to include a stroke action plan in the forthcoming Programme for Government.
Answer
Our focus for the current Programme for Government stroke commitments is to continue our work to deliver a national thrombectomy service for stroke and define a progressive stroke pathway. We are making progress against both of these commitments, with a report on progressive stroke services due by the end of December 2021, and a Scotland wide thrombectomy service operational by 2023.
The progressive stroke pathway report, will set the intention for improving care for people with stroke and following completion of the report, we will consider the appropriate next steps to planning its implementation.
- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 05 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on introducing an NHS app that will allow people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to download proof of their status.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament
- Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 01 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many people had a serious adverse reaction to any of the COVID-19 vaccines, and how many required (a) hospital or (b) medical treatment from their GP as a result of any such adverse reaction.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not collect data on suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the UK as this a statutory function of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The MHRA produces a weekly summary of Yellow Card reporting and includes other safety investigations carried out by the MHRA under the COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Strategy. On 1 July this report was updated to include new data up to 23 June 2021. The MHRA does not currently break down these data by treatment required at secondary or primary clinical care settings.
The number of suspected ADR reports received in the UK for COVID-19 vaccines up to and including 23 June were as follows:
Table 1
Country | Pfizer / BioNTech | Oxford University / AstraZeneca | Moderna | Brand unspecified |
England | 62,531 | 176,810 | 5,602 | 483 |
Wales | 4,259 | 9,279 | 236 | 46 |
Northern Ireland | 1,685 | 2,483 | 2 | 8 |
Scotland | 6,047 | 14,658 | 528 | 86 |
The number of suspected thrombo-embolic events with concurrent thrombocytopenia ADR reports received for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK up to and including 23 June were as follows:
Table 2
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 02 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what specific initiatives in the marketing and communications strategy for the COVID-19 vaccination programme were aimed at reaching those in the age 40-50 age bracket who were hesitant about the reported side affects of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccination.
Answer
The Scottish Government in terms of its marketing and communication planning, utilises a number of communication channels, to reach those that are hesitant under the generic campaign, Roll Up Our Sleeves, targeting 18-49 year olds.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 02 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals in the 40-50 age bracket did not receive their COVID-19 vaccination for the reason that they were not offered an alternative to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine while attending at a vaccination centre, broken down by NHS board,
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many people in each age group have reported experiencing symptoms of long COVID, also broken down by how many were not originally hospitalised due to the virus.
Answer
The most recent long COVID statistics published by the Office for National Statistics on 1 July 2021 state that, over the four-week period ending 6 June 2021, an estimated 962,000 people living in private households in the UK reported experiencing long COVID (symptoms persisting more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) episode that are not explained by something else). Of those people, an estimated 81,000 lived in Scotland. Detailed estimates by age are available for the UK at Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) .This detail is not available for Scotland.
We do not currently have for Scotland a breakdown of people experiencing symptoms of long COVID by age, or according to whether or not they were originally hospitalised due to the virus. We are working with the EAVE II project, on which the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland collaborate. Funded by the Medical Research Council, this project used pseudonymised GP and other patient data to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland. This dataset is now being used in a separate project funded by the Chief Scientist Office to investigate long COVID, and will generate analysis of people assessed as having long COVID. Early results will be available later in 2021.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the PFI operators for each of the three hospitals where PFI contracts are in place to discuss long-term parking arrangements.
Answer
The PFI contracts in place for car parking are held between each of the NHS Boards, NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and NHS Tayside, and the PFI providers. Therefore discussions with the PFI providers are led by NHS Boards, not the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government attended a meeting between NHS Tayside and the Ninewells Hospital PFI car park operator on 16 December 2020. Further discussions have taken place since that date between NHS Tayside and the PFI car park operator. The Scottish Government has not attended meetings between NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and their PFI car park operators.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much money it estimates has been saved by (a) patients, (b) visitors and (c) staff as a result of the suspension of car park charges at each of the three hospitals where PFI contracts are in place.
Answer
Since the suspension of charges, the costs of parking and therefore total savings for all users are estimated to be in the region of £8.1m.
Beyond this, there is no means to robustly track the composition of those individuals who are using these car parks and therefore it is not possible to appropriate estimated savings to each of these groups.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting timing is for family genetic testing following a sudden arrhythmic death syndrome bereavement.
Answer
Statistics on the waiting times patients experience waiting for family genetic testing following a sudden arrhythmic death syndrome bereavement are not held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). PHS does not hold information on the conditions patients are waiting to be seen for.
Statistics relating to the waits patients experience for new outpatient appointments at specialty level are published up to 31 March 2021. These include waiting times for Clinical Genetics and Cardiology. These can be found at the following link: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment-quarter-ending-31-march-2021/ .
For clinical genetics, the median waiting time for patients seen during Jan-Mar ‘21 was 40 days.