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-35780

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 1 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that specialist chronic pain services are retained.

Question reference: S6W-35781

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 1 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the consultation on long-term conditions will conclude, and by what date a strategy and action plan will be published.

We are exploring a new long term conditions strategy to better recognise the fact that many people living with long term conditions need the same types of support and care, regardless of their condition.

A public consultation will launch soon and will be open for responses for 12 weeks. We plan to publish a Long Term Conditions Framework before the end of 2025 with action plans following thereafter.

Question reference: S6W-35778

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 1 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce chronic pain waiting time lists.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving care for people with chronic pain, by delivering the actions in the at pace.

The Implementation Plan outlines actions to expand skills and knowledge on chronic pain across local services and scaling-up new ways of working to improve the consistency and resilience of local pain services.

The Scottish Government’s budget for the coming year has now been passed by Parliament and will invest a record £21.7 billion in Scotland’s health and social care services, including £200 million to reduce waiting lists and improve capacity.

By March 2026, we expect no-one to wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day case treatment with more than 150,000 extra patients seen as a result.

Question reference: S6W-35779

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 1 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to measure waiting times for follow-up appointments for chronic pain services, and whether it will publish any such data.

Waiting times for first clinician led chronic pain appointments are currently reported every quarter on the PHS website, The contains a specific action to work with PHS to improve how we capture and report national data on chronic pain. The current focus of which is to review and improve waiting times data for first appointments. We are considering the feasibility of collecting and reporting national data on waits for return appointments.

Question reference: S6W-35782

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Women's Rights Network Scotland report, How safe are our Scottish hospitals?, and what action it will take in light of the recommendations.

The safety of patients and staff is an absolute priority. Assaults on patients or staff are completely unacceptable, and everyone has the right to access healthcare, or their place of work, without the fear of verbal or physical abuse.

NHS Boards have reporting systems to capture data on violence and aggression - including sexual assault. I strongly encourage staff to report any and all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action. The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending.

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of national standards of reporting and the requirement for monitoring and publishing of data. We have committed to work with HIS and Health Boards to improve the collection of data nationally.

Question reference: S6W-35783

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many mixed-sex hospital wards there are in each NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-35483

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 18 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what future capital funding will be allocated to the clinical waste disposal site at Hassockrigg Eco Park.

NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) was allocated £6.9m of capital funding for the purchase of the Hassockrigg Eco Park and equipment, to increase the resilience of the system for disposing of NHS clinical waste and to secure its long-term future.

Ongoing running and maintenance costs associated with the site are the responsibility of NSS as site owner, and it is for NSS to allocate appropriate funding for these costs from within the Board’s overall budget. The 2025-26 Scottish Budget provides funding of £428.5 million to NSS. NSS will receive a 3% baseline uplift of £12.5 million – this represents a 0.6% real terms increase compared to 2024-25.

Question reference: S6T-02426

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason hospitals are reportedly still using MRI scanners, CT scanners and X-ray machines that are decades old, in light of reported warnings by experts that equipment over 10 years old should be replaced.

Question reference: S6W-35352

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of unaddressed adult hearing loss on (a) keeping people in work, (b) health and social care services and (c) the economy.

About 1 million people in Scotland live with hearing loss and an estimated 70% are over 70 years old. Unaddressed hearing loss can cause distress due to cognitive decline and reduced social interaction, communication and education. Hearing loss is often accompanied by tinnitus, vertigo and balance problems and can be a contributing factor in dementia. Deaf people and people with hearing loss are less likely to be employed and have a lower household income than people with normal hearing. Hearing loss may also be a contributing factor to early retirement and could cost the UK economy £38.6 billion by 2031 (NHSE, 2017).

Question reference: S6W-35484

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 13 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has reportedly not carried out an environmental impact assessment into the procurement of clinical waste disposal contracts.

It is the responsibility of NHS National Services Scotland to assess the need for an environmental impact assessment.

The NP805/19 Healthcare Waste Services framework, implemented in 2019, requires NHSScotland clinical waste suppliers to follow SEPA regulations and permit requirements for healthcare waste handling and disposal and thereby meeting environmental impact standards. Additionally, environmental and sustainability impacts of the procurement of products and services to NHSScotland are an essential element of awards.

For the 2019 clinical waste award, as part of the specification, suppliers were asked to demonstrate how to minimise environmental impact by reducing waste, improving material recovery, and exploring new disposal methods.