Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 1207 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
It is important to say that I am a practising GP. Dr Agur, you spoke about the pressures on GPs and the number of conditions that we need to be aware of, and I can give examples of those. People have come to the Parliament to press GPs to be more aware of chronic kidney disease and brain tumours, for example.
I am sure that you are aware that we do not always know that patients have had mesh. When we get our letters, we do not know what surgical procedure has taken place; all we know is that someone went into urology and has come out. Is it not better to also have a central access point for women to be able to call directly if they know that they have had surgery and they have had problems since then? That is an easy one—if someone tells me, “I have had problems since surgery,” my first thought is, “Surgery.” However, common things are common, and surgery is not always our first thought.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We have a specialist service here for women who have suffered complications with mesh, and I am looking at the difference between that and the use of other types of mesh in other types of surgery. When people hear the word “mesh”, they think that it applies to absolutely all mesh and all types of surgery. I am looking for your opinion as to whether we can reassure women that the use of mesh in other circumstances is very different and safe.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire)
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
It really does make a difference.
My last question is for Jeff Ace. In NHS Dumfries and Galloway, 12 per cent of medical, dental and consultant roles and 11 per cent of allied healthcare professional roles are vacant. Given that you are in an even more rural area, what challenges do you face, and what are you doing to improve the situation?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire)
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
So you have a plan for looking into what is happening.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Dr Lamont, I do not want to get into a comparison, but I am looking for reasoning. NHS England has established a number of specialist services for women with mesh complications. How many of those services have been rolled out? What differences do they have? If there are no differences, why is that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I am not sure whether Dr Lamont or Dr Agur would be the best person to answer this. Dr Mathers referenced the urogynaecological specialist, but there has been a vacancy since July 2022. There is no consultant in post. How does that impact the service?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have one final and, I hope, quick question for Dr Agur. We are talking about mesh specifically in this environment, in relation to all the concerns that we have and the specialist mesh service, but people are also concerned about the implantation of other devices and types of mesh in other types of surgery. Do you feel that those patients having mesh in different scenarios is safe and something that they should not be overly worried about?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire)
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I often hear staff say that it is, as they always describe it, the little things that make a huge difference. On my visit to University hospital Ayr, I noted that it had a fantastic canteen that provides hot food at night time. Does your hospital do that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire)
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I want to start by asking Professor Archibald about his high staff turnover rate of around 13 per cent. What are the main challenges for retaining staff in your area?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire)
Meeting date: 2 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Before I ask my question, I draw people’s attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I am a GP and have recently worked in the NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Lanarkshire health board areas.
Professor Archibald talked about figures. You implement a continuous flow model, which means that patients move out of accident and emergency whether or not a bed is available for them. They might sit in a corridor, side room or waiting room or might sit as an extra patient in a ward environment. Where are those patients captured in the data?
