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: S5O-00614

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when carer’s allowance will be increased for carers in Glasgow.

Question reference: S5W-06149

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many non-clinical whole-time equivalent staff have been employed by each NHS board in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-06098

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the use of agency nurses by NHS boards.

The Scottish Government recognises that agency nurses can provide valuable assistance within an overall strategy of service provision, but expects Boards to minimise their use. The Scottish Government and NHS National Services Scotland have recently launched a nationally coordinated programme for all temporary staffing with a view to more effectively managing spend in this area. Agency nurses represent only a small proportion of the nursing provision in NHSScotland, amounting to 0.4% of total nursing and midwifery capacity in 2015-16. Nursing agency spend in 2015-16 was £23.5 million, which is lower than it was a decade ago in 2005-06 when £26.5 million was spent.

Question reference: S5W-05728

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many "did not attends" (DNAs) there have been from the Scottish Prison Service to NHS appointments in each year since May 2011, broken down by health board.

Question reference: S5W-05944

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 09 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 17 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many consultants each NHS board has employed on a 8:2 contract in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5F-00777

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2017

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the comment by the Chair of BMA Scotland that the NHS is "stretched pretty much to breaking point".

Question reference: S5W-05507

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have accessed acute assessment units in each NHS board in each year since 2010, also broken down by hospital.

Question reference: S5W-05757

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 13 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) terms of reference and (b) parameters are of the health and social care targets review; whether the review will consider the key performance indicators of the integrated health boards; what its timeline is; who the members of the review team are; by what date the findings will be published; whether it will publish the review in full, and when it will be in a position to implement the recommendations.

The review will look at how targets and indicators support the Government's strategies for the improvement of health, the future of the NHS and social care services, and support best use of public resources to ensure that we have a clearly understood and improved national measurement framework across the whole health and social care system and a focus on the outcomes to be achieved. The review will consider the 20 Local Delivery Plan Standards for the NHS in Scotland and the core suite of indicators for Health and Social Care.

The Scottish Government has asked the chair of the national review of health and social care targets and indicators to provide initial recommendations to Ministers by the end of March 2017 and will publish the report along with its response once it has had an opportunity to consider the recommendations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-04778 on 30 November 2016 which sets out a list of the organisations invited to nominate a representative to join the Expert Group. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at

Question reference: S5W-05729

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether NHS Scotland currently procures any pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics, from Aurobindo's UK subsidiary, Milpharm Ltd, and, if so, what the value of these is.

Central procurement of drugs and medicines on behalf of NHS Scotland is the responsibility of National Services Scotland National Procurement.

MilPharm Ltd (the UK subsidiary of Aurobindo) supply a number of medicines to NHS Scotland under the NHS Scotland Antibiotics and Genito Urinary medicines framework and the NHS Scotland HIV Generic Medicines framework. These were tendered through formal public procurement processes, in compliance with EU public procurement law.

The total value of MilPharm medicines under these frameworks is approximately £460,000 per annum.

Question reference: S5W-05513

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of A&E (a) admissions and (b) waiting times in 2016, broken down by (i) age profile and (ii) NHS board.