Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-00266

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will set out its strategy to improve Roman history tourism in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-00397

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 13 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS patients have received services through private healthcare arrangements in order to receive medicines that were not available through the NHS in each of the last three years, also broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S4W-00232

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what studies it has undertaken into the economic impact of RAF Leuchars on the Scottish economy.

Question reference: S4W-00416

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 13 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will issue guidance to ensure that evidence of clinical benefit or suitability is sufficient for patients with rare diseases to receive treatment through the exceptional funding process.

Decisions regarding the provision of NHS services are a matter for NHS boards.

In the case of medicines, all NHS boards have arrangements for clinically-led consideration of Scottish Medicines Consortium “not recommended” medicines for individual patients, including medicines to treat rare diseases. The process for such consideration is known as Individual Patient Treatment Requests and clinicians remain responsible for clinical decisions regarding the care of individual patients.

Question reference: S4W-00414

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what account the Scottish Medicines Consortium takes of the budgetary impact of the uptake of ultra-orphan medicines when assessing their cost effectiveness.

Question reference: S4W-00231

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 8 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding RAF (a) Leuchars and (b) Lossiemouth since 5 May 2011.

The First Minister most recently met with the Secretary of State for Defence in Glasgow on Thursday 26 May 2011. At that meeting the First Minister highlighted the disproportionate nature of any additional RAF withdrawal from Scotland following the decision to close RAF Kinloss and set out on behalf of the Residents Action Force Leuchars and the Moray Task Force the strategic defence, economic and social arguments for the continuation of both of Scotland's remaining RAF bases.

Scottish Government officials have also been in regular contact with the Ministry of Defence regarding the ongoing UK Strategic Defence and Security Review, including making continued and joint representations on behalf of both RAF Leuchars and RAF Lossiemouth.

Question reference: S4W-00008

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 1 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its road improvement priorities are for 2011.

Question reference: S4F-00005

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 May 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 June 2011

To ask the First Minister what support is being provided to berry farmers whose crops and infrastructure were badly damaged by the recent severe weather.

Question reference: S4W-00010

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 May 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it can take if an NHS board removes or changes health services based on incorrect financial figures.

NHS boards receive annual allocations to meet the healthcare needs of their resident population. Each year, NHS boards receive confirmation of the level of funding available to them, and it is for boards themselves to decide how best to fund both local and national priorities from within available resources. All NHS boards are expected to ensure that the resources received are spent in a way that improves the health and wellbeing of the communities for which they are responsible. Each NHS board has robust financial governance and audit arrangements in place.

Proposals for service change in NHSScotland require to be based on robust evidence and data. This is particularly the case in major service change proposals which are all subject to full public consultation and, ultimately, ministerial endorsement. Additionally, in 2007 the government introduced independent scrutiny panels which, in appropriate cases of major service change, have a team of independent experts to test the evidence base of the relevant proposals.

Question reference: S4W-00009

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 May 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will review out-of-hours health provision for remote and rural areas.

The Scottish Government letter of 14 June 2010 to the Health and Sport Committee set out a detailed response to their report on out-of-hours healthcare provision in rural areas. As was made clear in that letter, the Scottish Government is committed to provision throughout Scotland of out-of-hours services that match the ambitions within the Healthcare Quality Strategy for Scotland.

The responsibility for the delivery of out-of-hours healthcare across Scotland rests with NHS boards and they must ensure that the services they provide meet the needs of their local communities.

Tell us your views

Seòmar agus comataidhean