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: S5W-20295

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 21 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many missed NHS appointments there have been in each year since 1999.

Recording of missed outpatient appointments only began from 2008 onwards. Please see the following table:

Location	Period	Number of DNAs
NHSScotland	2008-09	164,580
NHSScotland	2009-10	170,773
NHSScotland	2010-11	171,220
NHSScotland	2011-12	164,867
NHSScotland	2012-13	163,923
NHSScotland	2013-14	164,107
NHSScotland	2014-15	169,190
NHSScotland	2015-16	168,523
NHSScotland	2016-17	156,648
NHSScotland	2017-18p	146,815

information is not centrally held for General Practice missed appointments. Practice, as independent contractors are responsible for their own appointment arrangements.

Question reference: S5W-20308

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many procedures have been undertaken in independent hospitals in Scotland in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S5W-20312

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government on what date it expects to publish statistics from NHS boards regarding the use of Peer Approved Clinical System (PACS) Tier Two for access to the cystic fibrosis drug, Orkambi, as part of the review of the new process undertaken by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

Question reference: S5W-20137

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 17 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it issues regarding how NHS boards should (a) collect and (b) use data regarding the (i) sex and (ii) gender identity of people.

The Scottish Government does not issue guidance that explicitly states how NHS boards should collect and use data regarding the sex and gender identity of people.

Health Boards are subject to the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (as amended), which underpin the public sector equality duty (PSED) set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

Responsibility for oversight of compliance with the 2010 Act, including compliance with the 2012 Regulations, rests with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which has issued guidance on how the Regulations should be applied in practice.

The definitions used for collecting data on 'sex' from people who attend hospital is defined in the ISD data catalogue, available at this link.

Question reference: S5W-20324

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 14 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when the new Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy) will be operational.

A full review of the IT development and security requirements of the Drug and Alcohol Information System, to ensure compliance with the IT specification, will be completed by National Services Scotland (NSS) in December 2018. Following this, the Information Services Division (ISD) in NSS will set out a timetable for implementation in January 2019. It is anticipated that the system will be fully operational in 2019.

Question reference: S5W-20315

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 13 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many respite care breaks have been provided to carers in each year since 1999.

The last respite publication ( ) provides data from 2007-08 until 2014-15 on the number of weeks of respite provided or purchased by local authorities in Scotland. The data does not measure the number of carers provided with a break. Figures from before 2007-08 are unavailable.

The new Carers Census will collect data from local health and social care partnerships and carers centres, including data about the number of short breaks provided to carers under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016. Data for the first 6 months after the Act came into force is due to be returned by 14 December. That data will undergo quality assurance checking and analysis. Publication is likely to be in spring 2019.

In addition to short breaks and respite provided by local authorities, the Scottish Government has funded non-statutory short breaks for carers since 2010. Over £26 million has been provided to the voluntary-sector Short Breaks Fund between 2010-11-2018-19.

79,096 short breaks were provided through the Short Breaks Fund between 2010-11 and 2017-18. This is the number of breaks funded so there may be more than one carer benefiting from each break. Please see the breakdown below for each year and fund. Figures for year 2018-2019 are not yet available.

Number of short breaks provided by voluntary-sector Short Breaks Funds

Year	Shared Care Scotland: Better Breaks, Creative Breaks, Time to Live	Family Fund: Take a Break	Total Breaks Per Year
2010-11	2,599	0	2,599
2011-12	3,804	1,236	5,040
2012-13	6,335	1,440	7,775
2013-14	9,844	1,620	11,464
2014-15	11,913	1,839	13,752
2015-16	11,637	1,519	13,156
2016-17	9,977	1,751	11,728
2017-18	11,552	2,030	13,582
Total breaks per fund	67,661	11,435	79,096

Question reference: S5W-20316

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 13 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many carers have received short breaks under the provisions of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016.

This information is being collected through a new Carers Census. The first collection of Carers Census data relates to the first 6 months after the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 came into force (1 April 2018 to 30 September 2018). This data will be completed by local health and social care partnerships and carers centres and is due to be returned to the Scottish Government by the 14 December 2018. The data will undergo quality assurance checking and analysis before publication, which is likely to be in spring 2019.

Question reference: S5W-20301

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 13 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been admitted to hospital after overdosing on opioids in each year since 1999.

Information on the number of individuals admitted to general acute hospitals following an opioid overdose is provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Number of people 1 admitted to general acute hospitals in Scotland 2 following an opioid overdose 3 ; calendar years 4 1999 – 2017.

Calendar year 4	Number of people 1,2 admitted
1999	1,476
2000	1,943
2001	2,275
2002	2,369
2003	2,119
2004	2,085
2005	1,900
2006	1,995
2007	2,201
2008	2,365
2009	2,321
2010	2,270
2011	2,362
2012	2,363
2013	2,389
2014	2,329
2015	2,377
2016	2,511
2017	2,577

Source: ISD Scotland, Scottish Morbidity Record 01 (SMR01)
‎ Ref: IR2018-01908

Notes:

1. Patients are counted once each year, regardless of the number of admissions to hospital they may have had in that year.

2. Includes patients admitted to general acute hospitals in Scotland, irrespective of admission type and patient’s country of residence. As appropriate treatment for opioid overdose would be administered in a general acute hospital, admissions to psychiatric hospitals are not included.

3. Up to six diagnoses can be recorded within each hospital episode record. This analysis is based on records with opioid overdose diagnoses in any position and within any episode within the patient’s stay. Diagnoses are coded using the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD10). The following ICD10 codes were used to identify opioid overdose, defined as:

T40.0 – Poisoning by narcotics: Opium

T40.1 – Poisoning by narcotics: Heroin

T40.2 – Poisoning by narcotics: Other opioids

T40.3 – Poisoning by narcotics: Methadone.

Multiple substances may be involved in a drug-related overdose, therefore hospital records can include more than one drug poisoning code.

The ICD-10 code selection listed above does not specify if the overdoses were due to illicit drug or prescribed drug use.

All types of underlying causes for overdose are taken into account, including accidental poisoning, intentional self-poisoning, assault by drugs and undetermined intent.

1. Calendar years are assigned based on patient’s date of admission to hospital.

Question reference: S5W-20306

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 13 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many specialist dementia beds have been available in the NHS in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S5W-20064

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) average and (b) maximum waiting time has been for an endoscopy appointment following referral at each NHS board in each year since 2007.