Parliamentary questions
Jackie Baillie
9,397 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new Southern General hospital contract currently employs staff in Scotland.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Brookfield already has interests in Scotland. The parent company of the preferred bidder are the controlling shareholder (75%) of Norbord Inc, a worldwide manufacturer of Timber Building board systems whose European headquarters are in Cowie, Fife. Norbord cu…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new Southern General hospital has (a) its company headquartered and (b) branches operating in Scotland.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Brookfield is based in London and as a result of winning this contract the company will now be opening a Scottish office. The award of the New Southern General Hospital contract provides Brookfield with a sustainable base upon which to grow both its construct…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new Southern General hospital was the highest cost bidder.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The bid was not the highest one received but was the most economically advantageous tender representing best value for money all in accordance with the evaluation process previously notified to all those submitting tenders.</p>
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new Southern General hospital was the lowest cost bidder.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The bid was not the lowest one received but was the most economically advantageous tender representing best value for money all in accordance with the evaluation process previously notified to all those submitting tenders.</p>
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether a tender pre-qualification for the Southern General Hospital contract included previous experience of building a hospital and whether the successful bidder met that condition.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The tender pre-qualification questionnaire required bidders to demonstrate relevant technical experience of at least one £200+ million healthcare project in the last three years and the preferred bidder met this criteria.</p> <p >Brookfield have completed o…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what firms were involved in bidding for the contract to build the new Southern General Hospital.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Five potential bidders participated in a pre-qualifying questionnaire process from which three were short-listed on the basis of their demonstrative ability to construct a healthcare project of this scale and complexity.</p> <p >The five bidders were:</p> …
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive who assessed and determined the bids for the new Southern General Hospital.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde as the procuring authority are responsible for this process.</p> <p >The evaluation of the bids was undertaken by a team with the appropriate skills, relevant knowledge and expertise to undertake the review and evaluation of tec…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the procurement process is for the new Southern General Hospital.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is the procuring authority. The board''s procurement strategy utilised the competitive dialogue procedure to facilitate discussion with bidders around pre-determined technical and commercial matters. The outcome of the competitiv…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the capital cost is of building the new Southern General Hospital.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The total funding requirement associated with the provision of the new adult and children''s hospitals and laboratory project, as identified within the outline business case (January 2008), is £841.7 million. The associated construction cost of the three buil…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive to estimate the number of jobs that will be lost as a result of awarding the contract for the new patient management system to a company headquartered outwith Scotland.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: No loss of jobs is anticipated as a result of awarding this contract.</p> <p >I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28999 on 25 November 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search fa…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is a requirement for local employment in the contract awarded for the new patient management system and, if so, what level of employment is guaranteed as a percentage of the overall workforce.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: There was no specific requirement for local employment in the contract awarded. However, the preferred supplier has indicated that they will employ an additional 25-50 staff based in Scotland to support the patient management system.</p>
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new patient management system employs staff in Scotland.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The selected preferred bidder employs three staff in Scotland as they provide the patient administration system for NHS Lothian. Intersystems intend to employ 25-50 staff based in Scotland to support the patient management system. The process of filling senio…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive where the successful bidder for the new patient management system is (a) headquartered and (b) has branches operating in Scotland.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The corporate headquarters of Intersystems is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It does not have branches in Scotland but is the existing patient management system supplier for the second largest health board in Scotland, NHS Lothian. Intersystems are current…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the successful bidder for the new patient management system was the lowest cost tender.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The bidding process adopted a weighting system in scoring potential bids. The highest weighting was given to the bidders capacity to deliver the clinical and business requirements, as outlined in the tender. Cost was the second highest weighted scoring factor…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what firms were involved in bidding for the contract for the new patient management system.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The patient management system advert placed on the 11 April 2009, attracted 73 notes of interest. Each of these potential contractors (bidders) was sent a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ), 23 responded to the questionnaire, of which nine were short-list…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive who assessed and determined the bids for the new patient management system.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The procurement process for the patient management system was comprehensive and involved 200 staff from five NHS health boards, NHS National Services Scotland and the Scottish Government. The NHS staff included doctors, nurses, health records officers, IT sta…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the procurement process is for the new patient management system.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The procurement process was carried out and was fully compliant with EU regulations. The patient management system procurement was managed using the competitive dialogue procedure, under which following an OJEU Notice and an initial selection process, the pu…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) capital and (b) revenue cost is of the new patient management system.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The patient management system procurement has been very successful, and the prices achieved are substantially lower than indicated in the outline business case and the indicative prices provided during evaluation. The costs are (a) £20 million capital and (b)…
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure that all 54 Netcare staff at the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre at Stracathro Hospital are redeployed by NHS Tayside following the recent announcement about its return to the NHS.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: This is a matter for Tayside Health Board and I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28959, on 1 December 2009, which demonstrates the steps being taken by Tayside to secure positive outcomes for the staff affected by the decision by Netcare not to …
16 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Netcare staff at the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre at Stracathro Hospital will be transferred to the NHS under the transfer of undertakings (protection of employment) regulations (TUPE) following the recent announcement about its return to the NHS.
Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The issue of whether TUPE rules apply is a legal matter and therefore a matter for NHS Tayside to confirm.</p> <p >The decision by NHS Tayside to take over the management of Stracathro offers the opportunity for future employment within the NHS for Netcare s…
12 Nov 2009 · General Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the use of occupancy conditions in section 75 agreements for housing in national park areas.
Answer · Roseanna Cunningham: It is a matter for the National Park Authorities in the exercise of their planning functions to determine whether and in what circumstances section 75 agreements should properly include occupancy conditions.</p>
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many pregnant women have been provided with free fruit since May 2007.
Answer · Shona Robison: I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28892 on 25 November 2009, which refers to the broadening out of our commitment to support pregnant women. The aim of the broader commitment is to allow health boards to put in place strategic measures to reach…
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how it is meeting the SNP manifesto commitment to provide pregnant women with free fruit.
Answer · Shona Robison: In June 2008, we published <i>Healthy Eating Active Living: An action plan to improve diet, increase physical activity and tackle obesity. </i>This included a commitment to broaden out the pledge to provide free fruit to pregnant women and pre-school children…
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will realise the SNP manifesto commitment to “give carers in greatest need a guaranteed annual entitlement to breaks from caring” and what that entitlement will be, expressed in weeks.
Answer · Shona Robison: A Short Breaks Working Group with representation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), local authorities and carers'' organisations is considering this issue.</p> <p >The <i >Carers Strategy for Scotland</i>, to be published in the first…
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how it is monitoring any increase in respite care.
Answer · Shona Robison: The Scottish Government receives, and will continue to receive for 2009-10 and 2010-11, the data by local authority on the number of respite weeks provided for all age groups and by each category of overnight and daytime respite weeks. This is in relation to …
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what funding has been allocated to local authorities for the provision of 10,000 additional respite weeks as referred to in its concordat with COSLA.
Answer · Shona Robison: In addition to the concordat funding, as part of the overall local government settlement, the Scottish Government allocated an additional £1.37 million in 2009-10 and a further £2.82 million in 2010-11 to enable local authorities to deliver an extra 10,000 re…
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many respite weeks were provided by local authorities prior to the introduction of an additional 10,000 respite weeks as referred to in its concordat with COSLA.
Answer · Shona Robison: Local authorities provided a total of 174,016 respite weeks in 2007-08. This is the baseline figure against which progress is being monitored.</p>
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how the additional 10,000 respite weeks contained in its concordat with COSLA have been allocated.
Answer · Shona Robison: Under the terms of the concordat, the additional 10,000 respite weeks are to be provided Scotland-wide, with no specific allocation of weeks to each local authority.</p>
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how it defines respite care.
Answer · Shona Robison: For the purposes of the concordat commitment in relation to the additional 10,000 respite weeks, the Scottish Government, COSLA and ADSW agreed that local authorities would use the Audit Scotland definition of respite. This covers overnight respite in a care …
11 Nov 2009 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much is being spent on providing services for carers.
Answer · Shona Robison: Support to local carers'' services is a matter for local authorities and health boards to determine on the basis of their local priorities.</p> <p >Local authorities'' net revenue expenditure on support for carers, including respite care, in 2007-08 (latest …