Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-33682

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what additional funding it has allocated to support the expansion of community optometry services in each of the last five years.

Funding for Community Eyecare (formerly General Ophthalmic Services) is published annually in the Scottish Budget and supports the expansion of community optometry services. Figures for the last five years, including annual movements are summarised in the following table.

	2019-20 (£m)	2020-21 (£m)	2021-22 (£m)	2022-23 (£m)	2023-24 (£m)	2024-25 (£m)
Community Eyecare budget	108.4	109.5	111.7	125.5	121.6	130.1
Annual change		1.1	2.2	13.8	-3.9	8.5

Question reference: S6W-33646

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to expand the range of conditions covered by the Pharmacy First service, and what analysis has been conducted to identify additional areas of need in rural regions.

We will continue to expand NHS Pharmacy First Scotland so that a wider range of health conditions are covered. This will further transfer the care of common clinical conditions to community pharmacy, removing the need for visits to GPs, Out of Hours services or Emergency Departments for everyday self-limiting conditions. In doing so, we will consult NHS24 and health boards to identify the priority conditions the service could cover in all community pharmacies in Scotland.

Through the Pharmacy First Plus element of the service, pharmacists who are qualified independent prescribers (IPs) can already go a step further than standard Pharmacy First, going beyond the approved list of products and the Patient Group Directions (PGDs) in place, to prescribe a wider range of products in response to patients' symptoms and conditions.

Question reference: S6W-33734

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much revenue has been generated by Glasgow Prestwick Airport since it came under public ownership, and how this compares with the operational costs in the same period.

Question reference: S6W-33736

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many military flights have landed at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-33650

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what regional variations in satisfaction with end-of-life care services have been identified in the last five years, and what action it has taken to address these.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on satisfaction rates on the provision of palliative care services across Scotland.

However, to inform the development of the draft strategy on palliative care, we carried out surveys mapping palliative care delivery across Scotland. These indicated that ways of working and reporting on general palliative care and specialist palliative care services varied by NHS Board areas.

Further to this, we also looked at research studies exploring lived experiences of palliative care, and we commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) to gather views from people in Scotland with experience of palliative care or caring for someone who has received palliative care. This included gathering views from people in rural and island communities.

The outcomes of all of these pieces of work are available at www.gov.scot/publications/palliative-care-strategy-palliative-care-matters/

Question reference: S6W-33510

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has with the Department for Work and Pensions regarding the data that it requires to allow the timely delivery of devolved benefits; what data from that department it has requested related to (a) mitigating the two-child benefit cap, (b) the number of households in Scotland impacted by reserved benefits, (c), universal credit claimants in Scotland, (d) supporting the delivery of devolved benefits, including the Scottish child payment and the best start grant and (e) developing policies aimed at mitigating poverty in Scotland, and what the outcome was of this request.

The First Minister and myself have had – and continue to have – positive discussions with the UK Government on devolved benefits and wider Scottish Government priorities, including where needed the provision of relevant data to support policy development and delivery.

I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 16 December to set out specific data sharing requirements in relation to mitigation of the two-child cap. While no formal response has yet been received, Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials are holding ongoing productive discussions.

More widely, we already receive necessary data from the DWP to make payments to eligible people in Scotland for Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Grant and other benefits and to support the ongoing benefit delivery. Other data, including in relation to the number of households in Scotland impacted by reserved benefits and universal credit claimants in Scotland, is publicly available from the DWP.

Question reference: S6W-33645

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring the sustainability of small pharmacies in rural communities; what impact the closure of such facilities has had on access to healthcare in the last five years; what specific steps it has taken to prevent closures, and what the outcomes have been.

The Scottish Government continues to support community pharmacies, including rural pharmacies, by delivering the largest ever increase to funding two years in a row. This has delivered a total of £422 million in guaranteed funding for community pharmacies across Scotland in this financial year.

In addition, there is a Guaranteed Minimum Target Income for essential small pharmacies, most of which are rural, and a pharmaceutical needs weighting payment which acknowledges both demographics and deprivation- associated with a patient’s postcode. Both of these measures help support rural pharmacies by ensuring they are not disadvantaged because of their location.

When community pharmacies close or transfer ownership this is a business decision taken by the community pharmacy owner. The Scottish Government has not undertaken an impact assessment on closures. Health Boards are the bodies responsible for ensuring that there is adequate provision of NHS pharmaceutical services within their area.

Question reference: S6W-34272

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what online resources Food Standards Scotland provides to support healthy eating education.

Question reference: S6W-34232

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what training Food Standards Scotland provides to local authorities to support effective enforcement of food safety regulations.

Question reference: S6W-34237

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how Food Standards Scotland supports small- and medium-sized food businesses to meet regulatory requirements.

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