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 MSPs 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-39304

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to (a) assess the way that Significant Adverse Event Reviews are recorded in the NHS and (b) consider whether a change in the format of recording practices is required.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) recently reviewed and published an updated version of A national framework for reviewing and learning from adverse events in NHS Scotland in February this year. This provides updated templates to support NHS Health Boards to consistently report and learn from Significant Adverse Event Reviews (SAER). Work is ongoing by HIS to standardise the terminology and definitions for recording SAERs.

Question reference: S6W-39308

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 25 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-33389 by Neil Gray on 24 January 2025, whether it will provide an update on when the Scottish Ambulance Service will publish its business case for the new pre-hospital service to cover the east and south east of Scotland, to replace Medic One.

Question reference: S6W-39092

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what interim mechanisms are being used to monitor the performance of fracture liaison services while work on the national audit is ongoing.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for implementing and delivering the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. They are working with NHS Boards across Scotland, to provide the necessary support as they develop the audit in line with Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP) governance.

Scottish Government expects that everyone with a long-term condition to be able to access the care and support they need to be able to live well. As such, we expect that all NHS Boards have monitoring procedures in place to manage the performance and effectiveness of their services.

Question reference: S6W-39093

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any impact of the reported delay in delivering the national Fracture Liaison Service audit on its ability to monitor any inequalities in access to early osteoporosis diagnosis.

The FLS audit has been commissioned to drive improvements and support clinical decision-making in effectively evaluating gaps in osteoporosis care. This will reduce health inequalities for the people of Scotland, especially for those most at risk of fractures.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for delivering and implementing the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. While they identified some initial recruitment-related delays, these have been addressed and completed.

PHS do not anticipate any further impact following this initial delay and progress is continuing at pace, on track and within the guidance set out by Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP).

Question reference: S6W-39091

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36002 by Jenni Minto on 1 April 2025, whether it or Public Health Scotland can provide an update on the timeline for the introduction and delivery of the Fracture Liaison Service audit.

Public Health Scotland (PHS), is responsible for implementing and delivering the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. While they identified some initial recruitment-related delays, these have been addressed and completed.

Scottish Government is satisfied that the FLS audit is on track as expected, and within the guidance set out by Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP).

More details on the SNAP guidance and governance process can be found here - Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP).

Question reference: S6W-39090

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s South Sector Fracture Liaison Service, which provides services for patients across the country, has significantly reduced the time taken to identify fragility fractures in patients, and the Scottish Parliament motion S6M-17886 highlighting that the service won the William Cullen Prize for Innovation, whether it is aware of the work undertaken by this service and the results that it has achieved, and what mechanisms it has in place to share good practice in fracture prevention across the country.

Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to implement and deliver the national Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit.

As part of the implementation, PHS is consulting with all NHS Boards to review services currently in place across Scotland and to consider how local examples of good practice feed into a national audit and are shared across the country.

PHS is collaborating with NHS Glasgow and Greater Clyde’s (NHS GGC) South Sector team and have met with the external provider of the digital solution technology for patient identification use in their service to understand the results achieved.

NHS Boards are responsible for the services they deliver. The decision to implement an external IT system to support service delivery is therefore the responsibility of NHS Boards.

Question reference: S6W-39247

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to better enforce the Agent of Change principle, in light of reports that 72% of fans in Scotland strongly or somewhat agreed that laws should prevent new residents near music venues from filing noise complaints.

The Agent of Change principle is enshrined in both the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (the Planning Act) and National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4).

Section 41A of the Planning Act sets out that, if residents or occupiers of any proposed development are likely to be affected by significant noise from an existing activity, the planning authority must take account of whether the proposed development includes sufficient measures to minimise or manage the effect of noise between the development and any existing cultural venues or facilities (including in particular, but not limited to, live music venues). A planning authority may not, as a condition of granting planning permission for a noise-sensitive development, impose on a noise source additional costs relating to acoustic design measures to mitigate, minimise or manage the effects of noise.

Policy 31 (Culture and Creativity) of NPF4 states that development proposals within the vicinity of existing arts venues will fully reflect the Agent of Change principle and will only be supported where they can demonstrate that measures can be put in place to ensure that existing noise and disturbance impacts on the proposed development would be acceptable and that existing venues and facilities can continue without additional restrictions being placed on them as a result of the proposed new development.

It is the responsibility of planning authorities to ensure they comply with their statutory duties, including in relation to the determination of planning applications.

Question reference: S6W-39249

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 22 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government who is being invited to provide insight for the first phase of strategy development for its Equality Strategy for Women and Girls.

We are engaging a range of stakeholders and women and girls with lived experience in the development of Scotland’s first equality strategy for women and girls.

The strategy will be co-designed with the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) and the Empowering Women Panel (EWP). The NACWG was established in 2017 to give advice to government on what needs to happen to tackle gender inequality in Scotland. The EWP was started in 2023 and is a group of 20 diverse women and girls from all parts of the country and all backgrounds who don’t normally have the chance to influence policy.

We are engaging widely and the first phase is ongoing, this will include:

Inviting over 50 organisations to engage with the women and girls they work with to share their views on the development of the strategy.
Two roundtables hosted by the NACWG with gender equality stakeholders and wider equality stakeholders to seek their expertise on the strategy.
A round table with members of the Senior Leaders Forum to understand how the strategy can support public leaders to work collaboratively to deliver further progress in equality for women and girls.
Individual meetings with stakeholders with key roles in the delivery of the strategy such as COSLA.
A workshop with groups that hold gender critical views to ensure that we hear a breadth of views.
Peer led research from the EWP seeking the views of diverse women on the development of the strategy.

The views and expertise from these meetings will be considered by the Scottish Government, NACWG and EWP and used to develop the content for the first phase of the strategy. There will be further opportunities to influence the strategy in phase two of its development due to commence later this year.

Question reference: S6W-39175

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with NHS Ayrshire and Arran regarding the delay in the delivery of a treatment centre at Carrick Glen Hospital.

Question reference: S6W-39174

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any impact of the delay in the delivery of a treatment centre at Carrick Glen Hospital.

We are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system NHS infrastructure plan. This will reflect on needs across Scotland and support the continued safe operation of existing facilities, as well as the determination of longer term investment priorities. The National Treatment Centre (NTC) programme is currently paused and the development of the NTC Ayrshire and Arran remains under review at the current time; no assessment has made on the impact of the delay in the delivery of a centre at Carrick Glen.