Questions and answers

Question reference: S6T-00085

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the disturbing events at Euro 2020 with a player experiencing a cardiac arrest on the pitch, whether it will consider subsidising automated external defibrillator purchases for amateur sports grounds.

Question reference: S6T-00075

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent survey, which records that more than 2,000 incidents of racism have been reported in schools over the last three years.

Question reference: S6T-00069

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the allegation made by Jim McColl in The Herald on Sunday that £25 million of public money was wasted on the "forced" nationalisation of Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd.

Question reference: S6W-00394

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what additional funding has been provided to the Ayrshire Police Division to help fight drug-related crime, given that the number of drug-related crimes recorded by police in South Ayrshire has increased year on year since 2016/17.

The Scottish Government provides grant in aid funding to the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), which along with the Chief Constable has responsibility for allocating these resources across policing priorities. Despite constraints on Scotland’s public services through a decade of UK austerity, the Scottish Government investment in policing this year has increased by £60.5 million to more than £1.3 billion. An additional £15 million has been made available to the SPA in 2021-22 to specifically to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the policing budget.

As of 31 March 2021, there were 17,283 officers, which is significantly above the level inherited in 2007, with a higher number of officers than at any time during the previous administration.

Police Scotland will continue to prioritise reducing the harms to communities by tackling alcohol and drug misuse as outlined in their South Ayrshire Local Police Plan. The Scottish Government believes that the best way to reduce drug-related crime and drug-related death is to get people into appropriate treatment and support services at every point of the criminal justice system. However we must not be complacent, we will continue to bear down on crime in Scotland, through protecting police budgets and substantial investment in preventative programs.

Question reference: S6W-00259

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether NHS Scotland plans to introduce a less invasive endoscopic procedure and post-operative helmet to treat craniosynostosis, and whether a more time-sensitive referral process to Great Ormond Street Hospital will be implemented if the procedure is not available through the NHS in Scotland.

Paediatric craniofacial surgery in Scotland is delivered by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde as a national specialist service commissioned by the National Services Division. Within the Board there is an ambition to develop endoscope assisted surgery as part of a wider practice to correct children with skull deformity due to a craniosynostosis. Physicians from the Board had intended to visit a centre in North America to share best practice but the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in this being postponed.

At present the only nationally designated craniofacial service in the UK that is known to offer endoscope assisted surgery is Great Ormond Street Hospital. Whether a patient should be referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital is dependent on individual clinical circumstances. The perioperative follow-up for patients after this procedure is more complicated as reassessment and repeat helmet fittings are required.

Question reference: S6W-00261

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether the bursary for student paramedics will be in place before the start of the next academic year in September.

Question reference: S6W-00216

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential benefits of the (a) procurement and (b) deployment of professional high-efficiency particulate air purifiers in enclosed workspaces.

The UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (“SAGE”) Environmental and Modelling Group (“EMG”) published a paper on 4 November 2020 on the “ ”, to which NHS National Services Scotland contributed on behalf of the Scottish Government. Work is due to start with the Office of Product Safety and Standards and the SAGE EMG to consider air cleaners further as there is no recognised standard for their efficacy.

Question reference: S6W-00247

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people did not attend their vaccine appointment in the last 10 weeks, broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) age group.

Question reference: S6W-00219

Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason NHS Dumfries and Galloway has no input or control over centrally-allocated COVID-19 appointments.

NHS Scotland Health Boards use the delivery model which is most suitable for their local circumstances, whilst maintaining a Covid-19 safe environment.

The NHS Dumfries and Galloway system schedules its own appointments using a booking algorithm, which works as follows:

•First checks for GP practices as a vaccination location;

•Then checks for nearest vaccination centre using estimated time to drive to location ( via google maps ) to find the closest centre, there is no upper limit for travel time;

•Repeats step 2 until it finds a vaccination centre with available appointments.

A person would potentially be asked to travel a large distance if there is no capacity at nearby centres. This is managed by NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

Scottish Government officials were instructed to contact NHS Dumfries and Galloway to ascertain if more local vaccination sites can be opened and if more are needed.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway responded that it is monitoring and addressing this. There is re-booking capacity to reduce the risk of appointing patients to venues that would require significant journey times. And NHS D&G continues to review uptake and "did not attend" rates across the region to determine if it is seeing any localities where there is a need to increase our provision to increase uptake rates.

Question reference: S6W-00218

Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason people in Dumfries and Galloway are being pre-booked by central teams for vaccination appointments that cannot be reached by public transport from their community, and which are an 80-mile round-trip from their homes.