Dr Richard Simpson

12 Jun 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what funds have been allocated to support the Choose Life programme in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08, and (c) 2008-09, also broken down by local authority area.

Answer · Shona Robison: The Scottish Government allocated £8.6 million over 2006-08 for the further implementation of Choose Life. National activities, led by the Choose Life national implementation team, received £2 million over 2006-08. Local activities received a total of £6.6 mi…

12 Jun 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding will be allocated to Breathing Space telephone advice lines in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2010-11.

Answer · Shona Robison: The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Division has allocated £800,000 to NHS24 in each of 2009-10 and 2010-11 to support the running, staffing and advertising of the Breathing Space advice line.</p> <p >In addition, NHS24 have allocated a further £225,000 …

12 Jun 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what funds have been allocated to Breathing Space telephone advice lines in 2008-09.

Answer · Shona Robison: The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Division has allocated £800,000 to NHS24 in 2008-09 to support the running, staffing and advertising of the Breathing Space advice line.</p> <p >In addition, NHS24 have allocated a further £225,000 to support Breathing…

12 Jun 2008 · General Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with local authorities on determining the specifics of efficiency savings.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government has regular discussions at official level with COSLA about the Efficient Government programme. The identification delivery of efficiency savings at local authority level is a matter for individual local authorities and will be subject …

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive who made the decision to classify the 12,868 out-patients and the 8,130 in-patient deleted from the waiting lists as “treatment no longer required”.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The health care professional responsible for treatment. Patients may decide they no longer require treatment, and ask to be removed from the waiting list.</p>

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the detailed breakdown was of the 12,868 out-patients and 8,130 in-patients deleted from waiting lists on the grounds of “treatment no longer required”.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is not collected centrally.</p> <p >The decision to remove a patient from a waiting list can only be made by the healthcare professional responsible for that patient’s treatment. A patient will not be removed from a waiting list if …

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to the first supplementary to question S3O-2738 by Nicola Sturgeon on 20 March 2008 (Official Report c. 7216), what steps have been taken by itself or individual NHS boards to monitor and evaluate the patient experience of the New Ways waiting times system.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The overall aim of the “Better Together” programme is to gather information on the patient experience, which will be used to drive forward service improvements. In the first few years the programme will focus on In-patients, commencing in autumn 2008. This ma…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether a patient, in responding to the offer of an appointment under New Ways waiting times system and stating a “social reason” for unavailability, is able to have the clock stopped up to a date defined by that patient.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Published national guidance makes it clear that a patient’s “waiting time clock” is re-started when the patient becomes available to accept an appointment or admission date. A patient would normally define the end date of their social unavailability.</p>

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients were not added to waiting lists by virtue of being deemed medically unfit and having no clear end date to the condition which would have allowed the referral to proceed; who is responsible for reaching such a conclusion, and whether the patient, appropriate care giver or…

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Information on numbers of patients not added to waiting lists is not available centrally. Published national guidance makes it clear that medically unfit patients should not be added to a waiting list if there is no estimated end date to their unavailability.…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether patients who did not attend for a scheduled appointment but reported subsequently, after presenting reasonable grounds for original non-attendance, have had their waiting time clock stopped, reset to zero or were removed from the list completely and sent back to the GP for a new r…

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is not available centrally.</p> <p >Published national guidance on the management of waiting lists states that if a patient does not attend on the agreed date then the patient would be recorded as a “Did Not Attend” and their waitin…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints have been received by patients about the operation of the New Ways waiting times system.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: I have personally received no complaints from patients or from their representatives about the operation of the New Ways system.</p> <p >The number of complaints about waiting times made to NHS boards during the year ending 31 March 2008 will be published by…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients appealed against the decision to remove them from waiting lists for reasons listed in WT28 codes 37, 38, 40 and 41.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Information on appeals against decisions to remove patients from waiting lists is not collected centrally. We are not aware of any appeals that have been made or indeed any complaints received. There are a number of safeguards that protect the interests of pa…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what codes are applied to a patient being removed from waiting lists where the referral is not from a GP.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested, for new out-patients is provided in the following table. Information for in-patients, day cases and return out-patients is not centrally available.</p> <p >NHSScotland: New Out-patients Removed from Waiting List Where the Patient w…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of the 8,301 out-patients and the 2,914 in-patients that were removed from the New Ways waiting list in the first quarter of 2008 were transferred to another (a) speciality and (b) NHS board.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is shown in the following tables.</p> <p >There are some data quality issues around the statistics relating to reasons why patients have been removed from waiting lists. Consequently, the data provided is provisional and is expected…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of the 20,931 out-patients and the 2,452 in-patients that were removed from the New Ways waiting list in the first quarter of 2008 were removed for each of the reasons under WT28 codes 20, 21, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42 and 43.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is shown in the following tables. The information provided is a breakdown of 20,931 out-patients and 2,452 in-patients and day cases and only relates to patients who were returned to the care of their GP and the reasons.</p> <p >Inf…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of the 20,931 outpatients and the 2,452 inpatients that were removed from the New Ways waiting list in the first quarter of 2008 were previously on the Availability Status Codes waiting list.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Information on whether patients removed from waiting lists following the introduction of “New Ways” of defining and measuring waiting times held an Availability Status Code is not collected centrally.</p>

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what consultation was undertaken with GPs before the introduction of the New Ways waiting times system.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Interim guidance on the new definitions and main principles of “New Ways” was issued in March 2005. This guidance was produced by a multi-disciplinary group of the health service - including a GP - and the Scottish Executive Health Department. The main princi…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how it proposes to meet its targets of a zero increase in antidepressant prescribing by 2009-10 and a 10% reduction in future years.

Answer · Shona Robison: The recently established Mental Health Collaborative will be working with every NHS board area to drive the delivery of this target through change and improvement. This attention and focus will complement the integrated care pathway standards for depression a…

30 May 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it can confirm that the number of mental health nurse training places will drop from 550 to 340 in autumn 2008.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The student intake numbers for mental health nursing have been agreed at 366 for 2008-09. NHS boards recommended a target of 340, reflecting falling board demand for mental health nurses. The Scottish Government encouraged an additional uplift of 26 training …

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken, or intends to take through the Healthy Living programme, to encourage larger firms to plan for management of a pandemic.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The Healthy Living programme relates to health improvement and therefore contains no guidance on planning for a flu pandemic. Relevant guidance was however published in <i>A</i> <i>Scottish Framework for responding to an influenza Pandemic </i>on 22 November …

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance been issued to residential schools on pandemic preparedness.

Answer · Maureen Watt: Guidance was issued to all local authority, independent and grant-aided schools in July 2006. Sections 2C of the guidance provided specific advice for boarding schools and secondary schools with hostels. It is available electronically at:</p> <p ><a href="ht…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance on pandemic preparedness has been issued to hospices, care homes, secure accommodation and the Dungavel detention centre.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government has produced a range of guidance to support local planners. In July 2006, planning guidance was issued to schools and childcare settings, including secure units. This was followed in February 2008 by infection control guidance for thes…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps have been taken to ensure that voluntary organisations such as the Red Cross, WRVS and others supporting vulnerable adults are fully engaged and consulted on planning issues in the event of a pandemic.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Responsibility for liaison with voluntary organisations rests with Category 1 Responders as defined by the Civil Contingency Act 2004. Category 1 Responders are organisations such as local authorities, NHS boards, the police and the Fire and Rescue Services. …

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what training module it has created for retired medical, nursing and allied health professionals who may be able to provide support to core services in the event of a pandemic.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government is not responsible for creating training modules for individual health care practitioners. This is because the content of any up-skilling programme must accommodate the individual learning needs of the practitioner in question and the …

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance has been issued to NHS boards regarding maintaining a list of recently retired doctors, nurses and allied health professionals and whether they will be offered appropriate ongoing training for work during an emergency pandemic.

Answer · Nicola Sturgeon: Work is currently being undertaken to produce Pandemic Flu Scottish Guidance on Health Workforce. This will include advice to NHS employers regarding the need to build up a local pool of staff currently outside the NHS such as the recently retired. Boards sho…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what stockpiles of pneumococcal vaccine exist in Scotland to prevent the spread of secondary respiratory infection in the event of a pandemic.

Answer · Shona Robison: We are not currently stockpiling pneumococcal vaccines to prevent the spread of secondary respiratory infection in the event of a pandemic. Pneumococcal vaccination for children is currently provided as part of the existing childhood vaccination schedule and …

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, following recent reports that almost 50% of children opted for six single MMR injections and did not complete the course, what action is being taken to encourage vaccination of these children.

Answer · Shona Robison: The recent report referred to in the question details a large cohort of children from the UK, including 1,740 from Scotland, who had their immunisation records examined. 5.2% of the total individuals included in the study (14,578) had opted for at least one s…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to encourage parents who were advised to decline the MMR vaccine for their children to now take up the vaccination.

Answer · Shona Robison: The NHS in Scotland continues to reinforce the message that the recommended way to protect your child is through the combined MMR vaccination.</p> <p >Communication from a trusted health professional is key in supporting uptake and minimising parent anxiety.…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it intends to undertake any catch-up vaccination of children who have not received the pneumococcal vaccine.

Answer · Shona Robison: A catch-up exercise was carried out at the time that the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine was introduced into the childhood schedule. In total 88% of the children who were offered catch-up immunisation at this time have been immunised appropriately for their ag…

30 Apr 2008 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in immunising older people with pneumococcal vaccine, in particular high-risk groups such as people who suffer from asplenia.

Answer · Shona Robison: In the winter of 2000-01, 5.9% of those aged 65 years and over had received pneumococcal vaccination. This rose to 19.4% before the 2003-04 vaccination programme and to 67.7% at the end of the first year of the programme. By 2005-06 73.0% had received the pne…