Parliamentary questions

Alex Cole-Hamilton

2,700 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, how it plans to improve the attractiveness of a career in general practice and reduce the 76% of medical students encountering negativity towards the profession, in order to increase exposure and p…

Answer · Jeane Freeman: This was a survey undertaken of 3680 people from 30 medical schools across the UK and is not clear how many of them were from Scotland. The Increasing Undergraduate Education in Primary Care Group, chaired by Dr John Gillies, was set up to make recommendatio…

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement in the Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, that GPs should have a minimum of four years' competency-based training that includes 25% of study time embedded within practice, which is a rise from the current 8% of study t…

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Scottish Government agrees with the College that there’s a need to enhance the quality, content and locations in which competency-based GP training is delivered, and work is already underway to deliver such improvements, within the existing GMC-approved 3…

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, how it plans to increase investment in IT infrastructure urgently to improve accessibility, reliability and inter-operability of clinical systems.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy, published last year, commits to putting in place the underpinning architectural and information governance building blocks for the effective flow of information across the whole care system. Work is already under w…

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement in the recent Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, that 26% of GPs are unlikely to be working in general practice in five years’ time.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: This was a small sample of only 165 Scottish GPs and of the 43 that said they would leave in the next 5 years over half of them were over the age of 55. There are a variety of reasons why GPs leave the profession. The new GP contract, agreed with the BMA and …

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement in the recent Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, that the proportion of NHS spending allocated to general practice should be raised to 11% from the current 7.75%.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Scottish Government is increasing investment in primary care by £500 million over the lifetime of the Parliament. This will take spending on primary care to at least £1.28 billion and to 11% of the frontline NHS budget by 2021-22. As part of this commitme…

6 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement in the recent Royal College of General Practitioners report, From the Frontline, that access to medical schools must be widened, particularly for young people in deprived areas.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-23664 on 13 June 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/2…

4 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the MS drug, Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), is not available in Scotland.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) was accepted by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) in December 2018 for restricted use in adult patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis where the patient has active disease. The Scottish Government hopes to see a furthe…

3 Jun 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what the outcome was of the National Planning Board meeting in May 2019 that considered proposals for the delivery of a national thrombectomy service for stroke patients, and what the timetable is for the roll out of this service.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The National Planning Board considered the next stage of the proposals for the establishment of a Scottish thrombectomy service at their meeting in May 2019. The proposals have been designed and developed by the Directors of the Planning Thrombectomy Advisory…

31 May 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether the landlords of purpose-built student housing with fewer than 30 bedrooms can let these to non-students under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016.

Answer · Kevin Stewart: Schedule 1 of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 (‘the Act’) sets out a list of Tenancies which cannot be private residential tenancies ( http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2016/19/schedule/1/enacted ). The Private Residential Tenancy repla…

31 May 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it concluded that the minimum let property and other properties together must include at least 30 bedrooms to qualify as student housing under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 and, in light of reported concerns that this approach might discriminate agai…

Answer · Kevin Stewart: The intention behind setting a condition of a minimum number of bedrooms within Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA), is to clearly distinguish PBSA accommodation from large flats let to students by landlords who are not PBSA providers. During the passa…