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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 775 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
I am bound to say that I think that we have got the balance right. I can understand where Paul O’Kane’s questions are coming from, as it is difficult to get that right. However, as I have mentioned, a key point is that we do not want it to become another organisation that is looking to apportion blame. That is the last thing that we want. The two absolutely key things that we want from the patient safety commissioner role is for the patient’s voice to be heard and for the system to learn lessons. Those are really key.
I think that there are enough powers to make sure that the commissioner can inquire and take action, that Government has to listen to them and that there is an accountability to Parliament. However, as with any new role, there will be lessons learned and evolution as we go along.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
We might, and as I have said, I am open to that possibility. As the role develops and is evaluated by Parliament, that might well be an issue that we as parliamentarians will need to consider.
However, the commissioner might develop a really slick way of working with all the other organisations that do such jobs and be able to help individuals to navigate the system. It is very clear, for instance, that individual patients do not know how to get their issues investigated or how to get an appropriate resolution from the healthcare system. The commissioner might therefore develop in a very slick way and help patients to navigate the system and ensure that their voices are heard, as well as picking up on those systemic issues that we have not been fast enough or slick enough at picking up on in the past.
That will depend on how well the commissioner works with all the organisations in this space. That collaboration will be absolutely key.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
I would say that the need is well established. We have shown and demonstrated that such a role is currently absent and that it would help to prevent harm.
The types of harm that I would envisage the patient safety commissioner picking up on and preventing are not only devastating for patients but often very costly to the system. Therefore, I think that this is a reasonable investment to prevent harm. We have established that the current system is not managing to prevent harm in the way that we would have hoped that it would.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
Absolutely. That will be part of the dialogue when that person is in post. We will undoubtedly be interested to hear what the commissioner thinks that their priorities are and how they intend to measure the outcomes and demonstrate robustly to Parliament and to other interested parties that they are doing the job that we intended them to do.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
Yes, absolutely—I think that that is clear.
It is not that the commissioner will never do investigations; we have given them some investigative powers because we think that there may be occasions on which it would be useful for them to do that. By and large, however, other organisations will do that work.
Nevertheless, I think that listening to individuals is important. Awareness of the big tragedies that I have mentioned a couple of times this morning started with one patient speaking up and then grew. It is important that the patient safety commissioner is able to listen to patients and pick up on the noise from the system. It seems to me that we do not currently have an organisation that is able to do that.
When such issues have arisen before, that has occurred as the result of an individual situation—nobody has been able to put it together. The patient safety commissioner will be able to put together that picture and listen to the noise from the system.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
I am bound to say that I personally feel passionately about the area, not simply because of my role as the minister for public health and women’s health but because of my professional background. I can see the need for such a role. I can see the need for somebody who is independent of the systems that already exist. There is a powerful need for the role and for the commissioner to be accountable to Parliament. I will not comment on all the other commissioners, but I think that there is an undeniable need for a patient safety commissioner.
On the concerns about the budget, that is a worry for the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. One of the reasons for starting small and trying to be agile is to allay the concerns about its taking on a huge resource and to ensure that the Parliament will not have to become a regulatory body with a vast web of actions throughout the NHS. The role is a specific one that is very focused on the voice of the patient and patient safety, and we will see how it evolves, with careful evaluation as time goes on.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
That is a reasonable aim for us to have, and if it is not clearly spelled out or well understood, it is probably worth reflecting on that and seeing whether we can refine it any further. Will Wood might want to say something on that. It certainly seems reasonable that if there are concerns that it is not clear how the commissioner and organisations would collaborate, we would want to make sure that the bill is clear.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
That is reasonable. That may be something that the commissioner asks health boards to provide evidence on or try to improve the system around.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
Do either of my colleagues want to come in on that, if my earlier answer was not sufficient?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Maree Todd
It is clear, particularly from the Cumberlege review but also from experiences prior to that, that the patient’s voice has not been heard. There are some very obvious examples of that, such as the mesh-injured women, the families injured by sodium valproate and those who were given infected blood. Those people made representations for many years as they tried to have their voices heard, but were not heard by the system. So, there is clearly a role for a commissioner who will ensure that the patient’s voice is heard and that when concerns, particularly systemic ones, are raised, those are picked up and acted on.
That will give all of us confidence in safety. There is lots of work going on across the NHS on safety and on quality improvement, but having a commissioner will give us all confidence that patients’ concerns are being heard and acted on.
