Questions and answers

Chamber and committees

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 ��˿�� 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: S4W-24900

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government��what the membership is of the (a) Violence Against Women Joint Strategic Board and (b) violence against women strategy working groups.

Question reference: S4W-24902

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government��when each of the violence against women strategy working groups (a) has met, (b) will report on progress and (c) will report its recommendations to the joint strategic board.

As stated in the answer to S4W-24905 on 25 March 2015, positive progress is being made in a number of key areas and to take forward the early commitments made in Equally Safe. Unfortunately it has not been possible to move forward as quickly as originally envisaged in establishing the four expert working groups proposed in Equally Safe to inform the development of longer term action plans in the areas of: primary prevention; capacity and capability; justice, and accountability. We are currently looking at the timing and development of this longer term work.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

Question reference: S4W-24780

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) highest and (b) lowest bed occupancy was at Ospadal��Uibhist��agus��Bharraigh [Uist and Barra Hospital] in Benbecula each week in 2014.

The following table shows average monthly occupancy rate (%) for Uist and Barra Hospital, NHS Highland between January and September 2014.

Occupancy rate (%) for Uist and Barra Hospital, by month.

��	Jan 2014	Feb 2014	Mar 2014	Apr 2014	May 2014	Jun 2014	Jul 2014	Aug 2014	Sep 2014
Occupancy rate (%)	56.4	74.4	58.4	46.8	53.8	46.2	44.3	42.7	37.0

Source: Information Services Division Scotland, ISD(S)1

Official statistics on the number of hospital beds relating to the quarters ending December 2014 and March 2015 will be will be published by ISD on 31 March 2015 and in June 2015, respectively.

Question reference: S4O-04145

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage teenage girls to become and remain more active.

Question reference: S4W-24675

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what public consultation must be carried out by NHS boards before decisions are reached regarding reducing the number of hospital beds.

NHS boards are required to involve people in designing, developing and delivering the health care services they provide for them whether those services are delivered in hospital, in the community or at home. The Scottish Government has introduced guidance – ‘Informing, Engaging and Consulting People in Developing Health and Community Care Services’ (CEL(04)10) – which sets out responsibilities for all NHS boards to inform, engage and consult their patients and the wider public and how that process should work. The guidance is available at:

Question reference: S4W-24597

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the waiting time targets are for out-of-hours NHS services and whether these are being met, broken down by NHS board,

NHS 24 acts as the first point of contact for patients during the out-of-hours period; its role is to help people access the services that best meet their needs.

As part of the Local Delivery Plan process, in 2013-14 NHS 24 was required to ensure 90% of GP priority and routine calls were responded to within 20 and 60 minutes respectively. Performance against these targets for 2013-14, was 99.97% for priority calls and 99.98% for routine calls.

Question reference: S4W-24596

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what maximum distance people are expected to travel to access out-of-hours healthcare, broken down by NHS board.

NHS 24 acts as the first point of contact for patients during the out-of-hours period; its role is to help people access the services that best meet their needs. This is a national telephone service, integral to the NHS in Scotland, which provides patients with healthcare advice and support when their GP practice is closed.

The provision of out-of-hours primary care services is a matter for NHS health boards to design, plan and manage in accordance with the needs of their populations. The Scottish Government would expect NHS boards to consider public transport accessibility, journey times, rurality and deprivation to ensure reasonable accessibility to all patients.

Question reference: S4W-24676

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to NHS Western Isles to allow elective surgery to be carried out at the Ospadal Uibhist agus Bharraigh (Uist and Barra Hospital), Benbecula.

The Scottish Government provides policies, frameworks and resources to all NHS boards, including NHS Western Isles, in order that they can plan and deliver the services that meet the needs of their local population. In terms of NHS Western Isles budget, from 2014-15 to 2015-16, the board’s budget will increase by £1.7 million (2.7%) from £62.2 million to £63.9 million.

I have asked NHS Western Isles to write to you directly about the elective surgery carried out and Uist and Barra Hospital.

Question reference: S4W-24673

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on making available the capital grant of approximately £450,000 that has been estimated to be required to furnish the Bethesda Care Home and Hospice to a standard that would help reduce the level of delayed discharges at Western Isles Hospital, Stornoway.

Question reference: S4W-24651

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government��how many NHS beds were planned to be opened each week in winter 2014-15, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) hospital, and how this compares with the number that were opened.

This information is not held centrally. The Scottish Government issued ‘Preparing for Winter Guidance’ to NHS boards on 23 September 2014, which advised boards to undertake detailed analysis and planning to effectively schedule elective activity based on forecast emergency and elective demand. Boards were also advised to ensure that this action specifically took into account the surge in activity in the first week in January. NHS boards signed off their winter plans by the end of November 2014.

Official statistics on the number of hospital beds relating to the quarters ending December 2014 and March 2015 will be published in March 2015 and June 2015 respectively.

The bed planning toolkit will be piloted across all NHS territorial boards from April 2015. This will support boards to develop a more consistent approach to bed planning over the short, medium and longer term to ensure that the right bed is available for the right patient at the right time.