- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has any plans for NHS Scotland to combine medical records in a database that is shared with third parties, similar to the reported proposals by NHS Digital for England.
Answer
Health data is shared, typically in an aggregated and anonymised format, with trusted third parties through trusted research environments known as ‘Safe Havens’. These Safe Havens comprise of a national Safe Haven within Public Health Scotland and four regional Safe Havens associated with NHS Grampian, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian, and Tayside.
Safe Havens play a crucial role in protecting personal data, providing a secure space, and supporting the secure use of NHS data for researchers to access and analyse healthcare data without compromising individual privacy. Within Safe Havens researchers can work with anonymised or pseudonymised data, reducing the risk of re-identification of individuals. By implementing robust security measures and access controls, Safe Havens ensure that only authorised individuals can interact with the data, and that they can only access the level of data that is appropriate and proportionate.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on paid promotions and advertisements on social media platforms in each of the last five years.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33748 on 29 January 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting (a) small- and (b) medium-sized enterprises in rural areas to implement healthy workplace initiatives.
Answer
Through our vision for ‘a Scotland where people live longer, healthy and fulfilling lives we are focused on improving the health of the population. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy and so we want to create an economy that prioritises the wellbeing of staff and employees of SMEs.
The Scottish Government supports the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) initiative, hosted by Public Health Scotland, which offers a range of materials to support employers on all aspects of work-related health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work and workplace safety.
The Scottish Government funds Working Health Services Scotland (WHSS), a service delivered by individual territorial health boards that provides occupational health advice and support for people who are self-employed or working in companies with 250 or less employees and have a health condition or injury which they feel is impacting on their work. This service is coordinated by Salus Occupational health, safety and return to work services (NHS Lanarkshire), who work in partnership with all 14 NHS Health boards delivering the service, including coverage across rural areas.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what evaluation criteria it uses to assess the effectiveness of its social media management spending.
Answer
Standard metrics particularly related to social media management include reach (how many people were reached), engagement (how many people engaged with the content) and or follower growth (how many people have chosen to associate with and regularly receive content from the account) among target audiences.
Social media activity will typically be part of a multi-channel campaign and assessing performance on social platforms spans a number of disciplines including of advertising, PR, influencer marketing and paid-for media management.
Our social media management and effectiveness is evaluated in a range of ways, according to the SMART objectives:
- Evaluation from Scottish Government’s independent media planning and buying agencies, using audited sector data where available.
- Indicators of direct response to a campaign and across specific platforms and channels such as post engagement, views of website content, calls to a website, vaccine uptake, cancer referrals, etc – during the campaign period. This is captured on a continuous basis and insight fed back into a process of continuous improvement.
- Where possible, quantitative research also tracks pre and post campaign metrics such as awareness, message take-out, attitudes and claimed behaviour among the target audience.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the total expenditure on social media-related activities, including management, advertising, and content creation, has been in each of the last five years.
Answer
Social media related activities undertaken by the Scottish Government encompass abroad set of teams and workstreams. A significant proportion of the management of Scottish Government accounts on social media platforms and the production of organic content, is managed by internal teams.
Communication to specific audiences via social media is an integral part of every Scottish Government marketing campaign and incorporates e.g. videos, paid advertisements, website and social content and influencer marketing. Scottish Government marketing content and campaigns run across multiple social media platforms (in either paid-for or organic form) as part of integrated marketing and communications campaigns. All social media activity is developed to support defined policy outcomes and in line with key Scottish Government priorities.
Scottish Government marketing and advertising spend is published each year can be found at including a breakdown by discipline and media type. As the 2024-25 financial year is not yet complete the information is not included.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 29 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with NHS boards to enhance access to mobile diagnostic units in rural areas, and what progress has been made in the last five years.
Answer
Neil Gray: Since 2021, we have provided three permanent CT scanners to support core diagnostic imaging capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod which is deployed flexibly to Boards that require additional capacity. In addition, one further mobile CT and seven mobile MRI scanners are being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity.
In the last 2 years, the Scottish Government has supported the North Imaging Alliance to:
- Test a regional mobile MRI service, hosted within one of the North region boards, with the potential to be used anywhere in the North or across Scotland.
- Provide additional capacity (over and above existing mobile MRI arrangements) to accelerate work on reducing waiting times for MRI.
During 2024-25:
- The regional mobile MRI van is anticipated to remove circa 3,700 patients from waiting lists in the North, participating boards are Grampian, Highland, Orkney, and Tayside.
- 2,408 patients have received scans to date and have been removed from waiting lists
- This has saved NHS Orkney approximately £180k and meant 313 patients were able to receive scans locally rather than having to travel further afield.
Significant additional activity is already underway following the allocation of £30 million funding to target reductions to the national backlogs that built up throughout the pandemic. This includes over 40,000 extra diagnostic procedures.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 28 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32904 by Fiona Hyslop on 14 January 2025, in light of the cabinet secretary's comment that "No full review of this [the Experimental Traffic Order (ETRO)], process has been undertaken since 2021 but officials have had a number of discussions with local authorities to provide further information on the change in process and to assist in putting the new measures in place", whether it will confirm what (a) partial reviews of this process have taken place, broken down by the (i) date and (ii) outcome of each review and (b) discussions have been held with local authorities, broken down by the (1) date, (2) local authorities involved and (3) outcome of each discussion, and for what reason this approach to the ETRO process took place, in light of the comment made by the then Minister for Transport in a letter to the Net Zero and Transport Committee on 16 December 2021 that "I can confirm that my officials will review the use of ETROs put in place by local authorities on a biannual basis for the first two years, then yearly thereafter...This will allow us to monitor not only the number of ETROs being made but also the purpose for which they are being used to assess if any further changes to legislation are required in the future."
Answer
While no formal post-legislative review has yet to be undertaken, my officials have been informally monitoring the use of Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETROs) by local authorities. Given the initial low uptake of ETROs following the legislative changes made it was felt that no formal review was required at that time.
Officials have advised that the scope of a review is currently being considered and that we plan to write to all local authorities to gather their views on the ETRO procedures within the next 4 months. It should be stressed that this review is often undertaken post-legislative change and would look at the numbers of ETROs brought in under the new legislation and any common issues local authorities are facing to help inform any further legislative change in the future. The review will not impact on the operation of existing ETROs or of TROs that are subsequently made under the current legislation.
Officials have also had a number of informal discussions with a number of local authorities who were in the initial stages of considering if an ETRO was suitable for various schemes. No specific record has been made of these conversations given that they are standard discussions between Transport Scotland and local authority officials
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many hospital admissions there have been in Aberdeen in each of the last five years of pedestrians injured in collisions with (a) pedal cycles and (b) two- or three-wheeled motor vehicles.
Answer
From April 2019 to March 2024, the total number of hospital admissions in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary hospital for pedestrians injured in collisions involving pedal cycles, is 9.
During the same period, less than 5 hospital admissions were recorded for pedestrians injured in collisions involving two- or three-wheeled motor vehicles. The source is SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: January 2025.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the total purchase cost of its current vehicle fleet was, broken down by model.
Answer
A breakdown of the fleet by total purchase cost by model is provided in the following table.
Make and model | Number on fleet | Total cost |
Ford Transit REV | 3 | £87,703.50 |
Iveco Eurocargo | 1 | £66,010.80 |
Kia Ceed PHEV | 3 | £71,580.98 |
Kia EV6 EV | 4 | £182,194 |
Kia e-Niro EV | 34 | £1,085,280.76 |
Kia Niro PHEV | 6 | £148,152.96 |
Kia Optima PHEV | 8 | £187.193.32 |
Kia Sportage PHEV | 41 | £1,326,823.49 |
Mercedes Sprinter | 4 | £161,462.76 |
Mercedes Vito | 1 | £43,610.40 |
Mitsubishi L200 | 14 | £282,999.72 |
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV | 26 | £697,091.64 |
Nissan Navara | 1 | £24,714.70 |
Polaris Ranger EV | 1 | £16,466.48 |
Renault Kangoo | 3 | £55,332.28 |
Skoda Superb PHEV | 4 | £157,684.52 |
Tesla Model 3 EV | 10 | £480,400.00 |
Toyota Hilux | 10 | £256,867.14 |
Toyota Proace EV | 1 | £35,957.02 |
Volvo S90 PHEV | 3 | £127,075.99 |
Volvo V90 PHEV | 8 | £326,010.35 |
Volvo XC90 PHEV | 1 | £51,275.00 |
Total | 187 | £8,871,887.81 |
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 28 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32592 by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2025, whether it will detail what specific fuel options it considers are sensible.
Answer
An individual business case, including socio-economic analysis, is prepared for each route being considered for decarbonisation. These business cases include technical and economic examinations of the case for of different types of rail traction including electric, bi-mode diesel-electric, battery-electric and other independently powered traction technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells have been considered.