Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament am ar 19 Mehefin 2024.
Liam Kerr
Ceidwadwyr
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to tackle long ambulance turnaround times. (S6O-03603)
Neil Gray
Scottish National Party
The Scottish Ambulance Service continually engages with health boards, while optimising services including flow navigation centres and the integrated clinical hubs, which provide care for patients at or near home, reducing pressure on accident and emergency departments.
The call before you convey protocol is being used and cohorting areas have been established at sites that are facing challenges, ensuring that ambulance crews are freed up during high-demand periods.
Liam Kerr
Ceidwadwyr
People in the north-east were shocked to read reports of a 96-year-old woman waiting outside Aberdeen royal infirmary for nine hours due to ambulance stacking. By the time that she was admitted, she had not eaten for 14 hours. We must be clear that everyone from the ambulance crew to the hospital staff did their jobs well, but the turnaround times that they are expected to work with, which are already unacceptable, are becoming unbelievable.
After 17 years of the Scottish National Party being in charge of our national health service, what is the Cabinet secretary doing specifically at the ARI to prevent stacking? Does he think that it is acceptable to have elderly patients starving and in agony for hours with help just out of reach?
Neil Gray
Scottish National Party
Clearly, the example that Liam Kerr cites is unacceptable. There is no defending that, and I apologise to the patient and their family for the situation that they have endured.
On the direct action that we are taking with NHS Grampian on the pressures in the ARI, I have asked for an improvement plan that will address the pressures in the accident and emergency department and throughout the hospital. There are pressures not just for our ambulance service in accessing the hospital but for the flow through the hospital.
We are also taking direct action with a joint mission with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on reducing delayed discharge, because our hospital occupancy across Scotland is too high, and that is stopping the flow through the hospital.
It is also fair to say that ambulance stacking is not a unique phenomenon, either to the ARI or to Scotland. Further, the situation is faced elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That is not to say that it is okay to experience that in Scotland; it is just reflective of the fact that there are significant pressures on our health and social care services across the UK—
Liam McArthur
Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol
Thank you, Cabinet secretary. I want to get in a supplementary question.
Kenneth Gibson
Scottish National Party
Can the Cabinet secretary confirm that, despite fiscal constraints as a result of Westminster Tory cuts, the Scottish Government provided £349.2 million to the Scottish Ambulance Service this year, which is an increase of £15 million on the previous year? Will he provide details of how that funding will be used to recruit additional staff to increase capacity and improve the service?
Neil Gray
Scottish National Party
The Scottish Government recognises the extreme pressure that the system is under, as a result of the on-going impacts of Covid, Brexit and inflation, as well as the UK Government’s spending decisions. We have therefore provided almost £550 million of additional investment to front-line NHS boards as part of the 2024-25 Scottish budget.
The Scottish Ambulance Service received £15 million of that increased investment, taking its funding to nearly £350 million to support the delivery of its services, and we continue to invest in the Scottish Ambulance Service workforce. We have provided funding of £45 million on a recurring basis in 2023-24 to support increases in the board’s capacity. That includes funding for the recruitment of 1,388 additional staff since 2020, 230 of whom were recruited in 2023-24.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
