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: S6W-00781

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken in the last six months to reduce endometriosis waiting times, and what the current waiting times are in each NHS board.

The Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan (WHP) will be published shortly and includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Work is already underway by the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme, as part of the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, developing a Pelvic Pain Pathway for Scotland, starting with endometriosis.

In the last year, Endometriosis UK were funded by the Scottish Government to carry out research to identify the challenges to diagnosis in primary care and implementation of the National Institute for Healthcare and Excellence (NICE) guidelines on endometriosis. This work has included updating endometriosis content on NHS Inform and the delivery of a webinar to support primary care to implement the NICE guidelines.

Information on the endometriosis waiting times in each NHS board is not currently available. Public Health Scotland are working with officials and Endometriosis UK to analyse national and board-level data to understand what information is available to assess current waiting times and identify future data needs that could be used to measure improvement in waiting times.

Question reference: S6W-00784

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to implement a waiting time guarantee and target for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment.

The Scottish Government aims to reduce the diagnosis time for endometriosis. The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

While there are no plans at the moment to introduce a waiting time guarantee and standard for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment we will continue to work with people with lived experience, Endometriosis UK and Public Health Scotland to identify realistic targets to measure improvement. The existing waiting times standards and guarantees for elective care continue to apply. NHS Board elective activity continues to remobilise at a safe pace, ensuring capacity remains in place to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as required.

Question reference: S6W-00622

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to roll-out the app trialled by the University of Glasgow for people living with long COVID to record their symptoms.

A web-based app has been developed as a means to collect data from those who agree to participate in the COVID in Scotland Study to understand the long-term health of people who have had COVID-19. This research study, led by the University of Glasgow in collaboration with Public Health Scotland and funded by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office, is Scotland-wide. Invitations to take part in the study are sent via SMS to all adults in Scotland who have had a positive COVID-19 test with the app available to those that agree to participate to submit data on their symptoms. This approach using an app to collect data from study participants will be described and evaluated as part of the reporting of this study once completed.

Question reference: S6W-00596

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the COVID-19 vaccination rate for (a) first and (b) second doses has been each week in the Scottish Borders.

The number of first and second doses administered per week to people living in the Scottish Borders has been sourced from Public Health Scotland. These data are from week ending 3 January to 20 June 2021.

Location	Week ending	New dose 1	New dose 2
Scottish Borders	03-01-2021	411	3
Scottish Borders	10-01-2021	2220	27
Scottish Borders	17-01-2021	2575	7
Scottish Borders	24-01-2021	2462	26
Scottish Borders	31-01-2021	4972	38
Scottish Borders	07-02-2021	9887	52
Scottish Borders	14-02-2021	10475	360
Scottish Borders	21-02-2021	1818	444
Scottish Borders	28-02-2021	4364	858
Scottish Borders	07-03-2021	4491	1611
Scottish Borders	14-03-2021	223	2722
Scottish Borders	21-03-2021	4088	3349
Scottish Borders	28-03-2021	3565	2236
Scottish Borders	04-04-2021	1258	3995
Scottish Borders	11-04-2021	4492	3750
Scottish Borders	18-04-2021	5995	7412
Scottish Borders	25-04-2021	256	7169
Scottish Borders	02-05-2021	154	2143
Scottish Borders	09-05-2021	1653	1326
Scottish Borders	16-05-2021	2341	3717
Scottish Borders	23-05-2021	3167	4252
Scottish Borders	30-05-2021	949	4613
Scottish Borders	06-06-2021	2979	5140
Scottish Borders	13-06-2021	2297	2910
Scottish Borders	20-06-2021	1511	5116
Scottish Borders	22-06-2021	1966	81

Question reference: S6W-00534

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will extend the window for 18- to 29-year-olds to register for a COVID-19 vaccination appointment.

Self-registration for 18–29 year olds closed on 11 June 2021. The online portal was part of the Scottish Government’s measures to widen the accessibility of vaccine appointments, and was extended for another week, on top of the original three week window. 40% of the young people aged 18-29 who were still to be vaccinated, self-registered on our online portal.

The 18-29 year olds who did not register online, are being scheduled for an appointment on the system this week, and letters are coming out over this week and next. However, to give advanced sight of appointments online, we are launching an appointment checker on NHS Inform to help people view their pending appointments. This will help those people, like students, who may have moved away from their registered GP term time address. This will also help them view their offered appointment earlier and chose to reschedule to fit with their work and life.

Question reference: S6F-00164

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to curb the decline of iconic woodland bird species in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-00505

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that COVID-19 vaccination information about people is transferred quickly and accurately from the vaccination centre to NHS Inform.

The Scottish Government utilises a vaccination management tool at the point of vaccination, the data forms used have built in validation to ensure the data entered are accurate. A new vaccination record is transferred to the National Clinical Data Store (NCDS) after 60 minutes. The layers of recording are updated from NCDS to the reporting dashboards, these are refreshed every two hours to ensure accurate recording.

Question reference: S6W-00282

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it plans to improve the booking system for COVID-19 vaccinations, and how it is addressing any reported issues or concerns that have arisen since the current system was implemented.

The Scottish Government aim is that is that the public should be able to access COVID- 19 vaccinations they require, at the time and in the format that they need it in. We are actively investigating more interactive appointing systems, while recognising that this will not work for everyone and will be need to be accompanied by other ways of securing appointments.

As a Government we always looking to improve service delivery, and building on the success of the unpaid carers and 18 to 29 years old self-registration service, lessons learned from the implementation of the National Vaccination Scheduling Systems, is that there is an opportunity to move to a more person- centred appointments services with benefits for individuals and communities, alike.

Question reference: S6T-00043

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent report by the Scottish Children and Young People’s Commissioner, which suggests that some at-risk children might have been detained unlawfully in secure accommodation.

Question reference: S5W-36034

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will prioritise the COVID-19 vaccination of mountain rescue workers.

We are adhering to the priority list devised by the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) who have advised an age-based programme will capture those with clinical risk factors as the risk of death is very strongly linked with age, more so than any other factor. A number of mountain rescue workers may fall into the priority risk groups set out by the JCVI based on their age and health; and these individuals will receive an invitation to their vaccine appointment.

In addition, some mountain rescue workers may be vaccinated as part of cohort 2 - frontline health and social care workers – but only when they are assisting other emergency services due to pandemic pressures, such as: the Mountain Rescue Service assisting Scottish Ambulance Service.