- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what plans there are to evaluate the virtual health treatment tool, Near Me, and whether any such evaluation will involve service users.
Answer
Near me video consulting service has been evaluated from 2 separate occasions but the university of oxford. See links –
https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-attend-anywhere-near-video-consulting-service-scotland-2019-20-main-report/
https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-near-video-consulting-service-scotland-during-covid-19-2020-main-report/
In addition to this, a public consultation was undertaken that reached an excess of 5000 people and professionals. This resulted in this summary capturing views on the service –
https://www.gov.scot/publications/near-video-consulting-programme-national-equality-impact-assessment/
We have also developed an Equalities and Impact Assessment for the Near Me service which you can find here –
https://www.gov.scot/publications/public-clinician-views-video-consultation-executive-summary/documents/
There are currently no further plans for further evaluation at this point.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to ensure that access to free Wi-Fi is available for any patients and residents currently being cared for by health and social care services who do not have such connectivity (a) at their bedside and (b) in public areas within their healthcare setting.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-13962 and S6W-13990 on 31 January 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy sets out a commitment to “work with partners to ensure patients and residents of health and care services have full access to free wi-fi, both bedside and in public areas within healthcare settings”.
For care homes specifically this means continuing work underway to fulfil the Digital Approaches in Care Homes Action Plan, including collaborating with Connecting Scotland and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations to support those 9% of care homes that still need to introduce Wi-Fi for their residents.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have used the Near Me service in each NHS board area in each month since it was brought into use, broken down by (a) type of appointment and (b) service provided.
Answer
The information recorded is for internal management purposes only, however we are exploring how best to make it publicly available.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 31 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13529 by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023, when the baseline audit will be complete, and whether that information will be publicly available.
Answer
The initial baseline audit of the public health workforce should be completed in 2023. However, given the diversity of public health roles in the domains of health improvement, health protection, healthcare public health and associated research, data and intelligence, the collection and analysis process will have to be refined before the data is suitable for publication. Our ultimate aim will be to publish it alongside the other NHS Education for Scotland workforce data.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it is doing to develop digital services as part of social care reform.
Answer
Through the Digital Social Care programme of work, the Scottish Government is doing a range of things to support social care reform, delivery of which is ongoing. This includes work to support building strong digital foundations, skills and leadership, and enhancing digital services. Further details can be found in ' Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2022-23 ' and details about the programme can be found here: Digital Social Care | TEC Scotland . An update to the Delivery Plan will be published later this year with delivery priorities for 2023-24, and will include an overview of progress against existing commitments.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 30 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government on which dates the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans has visited police stations, fire stations, courts or prisons in the South Scotland region since his appointment in May 2021, and whether it will provide specific details of each visit.
Answer
All Ministerial engagements, including visits to police stations, fire stations, courts or prisons, is routinely published on the Scottish Government website and can be found at: www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/ .
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 30 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to enable patients to have more control over their health and care information since publishing its Digital Health and Care Strategy in October 2021.
Answer
The Digital Health and Care Strategy was further reinforced in November 2022 with the publication of the Digital Health and Care Delivery Plan . In addition, a Data Strategy for health and care is due to be published early this year, which was consulted on extensively throughout 2022. This included public consultation, including in relation to patients' use of their own health and care information.
One of the core ambitions of the Data Strategy is to: empower the people of Scotland by giving individuals clear and easy access to, and the ability to manage and contribute to, their own health and social care data where it is safe and appropriate to do so. To achieve this, we will confirm data sources and data sets that are safe to be consistently shared. Data access will be enabled through the implementation of the Digital Front Door.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 30 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on the Near Me service.
Answer
The Scottish Government has spent £5.512 million since Near Me was launched in 2019.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 30 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding Scotland's Digital Health and Care Strategy, whether it has developed a fully interactive "Front Door", and how many people have accessed it, broken down by (a) whether the method of access was (i) online and (ii) via mobile and (b) NHS board.
Answer
The Digital Front Door is currently in the programme startup phase of its development and is not currently a live service. The commitment is to introduce an interactive ‘Front Door’ by the end of this Parliament in 2026, following public consultation and engagement.
This will be an irritative development and there will be a phased approach to implementation. As set out in our Delivery Plan we expect the first version of the Digital Front Door being available for release in autumn/winter 2023 and this will be accompanied by an implementation plan.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 30 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how it has increased access to evidence-based digital mental health treatments, products and services.
Answer
We have significantly increased access to digital mental health treatments, products and services since the first cCBT treatment was rolled out in 2017. We now have 27 different computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (cCBT) treatments available across all NHS Boards. In 2022 we launched Mind to Mind, a wellbeing site with short videos from advice from clinicians and people with lived experience of mental health services and links to support services. The majority of appointments using Near Me, the video conferencing service available across NHS Scotland, are for mental health and offer people access to support if they are unable or prefer not to attend in-person services.
This increase in cCBT treatments has been gradual, with products being piloted with a small number of Boards before national rollout. From 1 treatment in 2017 this increased to 12 in 2020 to reflect higher demand for digital support during lockdown. This increased to 21 treatments in 2021 including two new products that could be accessed by anyone in Scotland via a link, rather than requiring a referral from a GP or mental health professional. We continue to explore more options around self-referral and the role cCBT treatments play in offering mental health support that is accessible at any time.
