Parliamentary questions
Dr Jean Turner
219 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.
16 Nov 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many operating theatres there are in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, broken down by speciality.
Answer · Andy Kerr: Information on the total number of operating theatres for each acute hospital in Glasgow is shown in the table. Information is not available centrally on the number of operating theatres by specialty.</p> <table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3 width=321>…
10 Nov 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive which NHS services it will make a commitment to provide from any underspend in the health budget and what it estimates that underspend to be.
Answer · Andy Kerr: It would be inappropriate to provide figures until the final accounts are published.</p>
14 Sep 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what measures NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (QIS) will put in place regarding the postponement of a quarter of treatment appraisals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and whether the Executive will increase the number of health technology assessments carried o…
Answer · Andy Kerr: NHSQIS has taken account of the NICE decision in making plans for the future publication of appraisals. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS), the Scottish Medicines Consortium and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network all have work programmes …
14 Sep 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what impact the postponement of almost a quarter of treatment appraisals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence due to funding cuts will have on NHS Quality Improvement Scotland issuing Comments on Guidance.
Answer · Andy Kerr: NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) reviews all NICE appraisals for Scotland and issues advice to NHSScotland. Any changes to the NICE appraisal programme will be reflected in the date of publication of appraisals and NHS QIS advice.</p> <p>However, th…
14 Sep 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many health technology assessments were concluded by the Health Technology Board for Scotland before 1 January 2003, when it was incorporated into NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Health Technology Board for Scotland published three health technology assessments before January 2003 -</p> <p>Organisation of services for diabetic retinopathy screening </p><p>Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in cancer management</p><p>Preven…
14 Sep 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many health technology assessments have been concluded by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland since the Health Technology Board for Scotland became part of it on 1 January 2003.
Answer · Andy Kerr: Since January 2003, NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) has completed four health technology assessments:</p> <p>Organisation of troponin testing in acute coronary syndromes </p><p>Routine ultrasound scanning in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy</p><p>Th…
14 Sep 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether NHS Quality Improvement Scotland is on target to achieve 25 health technology assessments by December 2006.
Answer · Andy Kerr: NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) does not have a target of achieving 25 health technology assessments by December 2006. NHS QIS currently has the capacity to produce around three health technology assessments per year.</p> <p>NHS QIS is currently wo…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it will take to remove vending machines containing unhealthy drinks from primary schools and to ensure that all vending machines provide healthy alternatives, as referred to in the Food Standards Agency guide, Vending Healthy Drinks.
Answer · Euan Robson: Implementation of the recommendations in <i>Hungry for Success</i>, including decisions on vending issues, are a matter for local authorities. The Scottish Executive continues to work successfully with both authorities and the food manufacturing industry to d…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will distribute the Food Standards Agency guide, Vending Healthy Drinks, to primary schools, as well as secondary schools, to encourage head teachers and caterers to offer more healthy drinks in vending machines.
Answer · Euan Robson: The publication, <i>Vending Healthy Drinks</i>, was issued to Scottish secondary schools by the Foods Standards Agency (FSA). Decisions over distribution of the publication are a matter for the FSA. The guidance is available on the FSA website if primary scho…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans there are for the introduction of telemedicine to enhance rapid access to diagnostic ability and ensure that immediate treatment is available within accident and emergency departments and medical assessment units.
Answer · Andy Kerr: We already have experience of the use of telemedicine from the North of Scotland Accident and Emergency Network which links 15 community hospitals across the Grampian region to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. We are improving the national wide area telecommunicatio…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive when the further pilot study being carried out at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on the Information and Statistics Division System Watch Project will be completed and when the findings will be made available.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The information is not available centrally. This project is led by the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, making use of System Watch.</p>
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive when the System Watch Project, being piloted in Tayside, Dumfries and Galloway and Lothian, will be extended to cover the whole of Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: System Watch is currently used across the whole of mainland Scotland to monitor and predict pressure within hospitals, NHS24 and the ambulance service. An optional feature is available to automatically email users of details of patients re-admitted to each ho…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there will be wide implementation of the Scottish Early Warning System documentation with a view to establishing a standardised clinical early warning system, as recommended in the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: I refer the member to the answered to question S2W-16185 on 5 May 2005.</p> <p>As noted, the recommendations of the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland will be taken forward through the work of th…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in introducing a mechanism to identify recurrent admissions of patients over 80 and to systematically evaluate the needs of these patients by developing an action plan involving all relevant agencies and patients/carers in order to facilitate early discharge an…
Answer · Andy Kerr: I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16179 on 5 May 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at <ahref="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.s…
27 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will extend the working day and 24-hour availability of CT scanning for emergency patients, as recommended in the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16185 on 5 May 2005. As noted, the recommendations of the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland will be taken forward through the work of the Unsched…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce an integrated clinical pharmacy service to ensure the safe, clinical and cost-effective use of medicines in order to reduce the 15% of admissions to hospitals resulting from adverse effects from medicines.
Answer · Andy Kerr: <i>The Right Medicine: A Strategy for Pharmaceutical Care in Scotland</i> outlines the ways in which the Scottish Executive, the NHS and the pharmacy profession will work across the clinical and organisational boundaries to ensure that medicines are used both…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Picture Archiving and Communications Systems will be mandatory in Scottish ambulatory care and diagnostic centres, as is the case in England.
Answer · Andy Kerr: We are not aware of any mandatory deployment of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems in England. A procurement exercise will soon be concluded which will identify a supplier of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems to NHS Scotland. This system …
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether any research is being carried out into the use of teleradiology within the NHS to assist image transfer from referring hospitals to specialist sites.
Answer · Andy Kerr: A procurement exercise will soon be concluded which will identify a supplier of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) to NHS Scotland. This system can be deployed to archive and retrieve radiological and other complex clinical images including i…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take to ensure the optimal use of diagnostic services, both laboratory and radiology, in and out of hours to reduce waits and delays in unscheduled care, as recommended in the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Sco…
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Executive is working with the NHS in Scotland to further improve the care and treatment offered to patients at all stages of their pathway, including the pathway into and through unscheduled care. The recommendations in the Final Report of the Emergency M…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-27877 by Malcolm Chisholm on 28 August 2002, whether the objective of having a paramedic on every frontline accident and emergency ambulance by March 2005 has been achieved.
Answer · Andy Kerr: Yes, as a result of the success of the Scottish Ambulance Service's paramedic training programme, the service has more paramedics than technicians and now has the staffing mix to be able to deploy a paramedic-led response to all calls that require such a resp…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many calls to NHS 24 in 2003-04 were classed as "out of hours" in the Glasgow centre, expressed also as a percentage of all calls to the centre.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The NHS 24 Clyde Contact Centre went live in November 2002 and completed its roll-out covering five NHS board areas in November 2004. The calendar year 2004 therefore provides a more complete picture of demand on the Clyde Contact Centre, including the propor…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2O-5109 by Rhona Brankin on 27 January 2005, when the report by NHS Greater Glasgow on the review of the assumptions that underpinned the decision on accident and emergency services in Glasgow will be published.
Answer · Andy Kerr: This report was considered byGreater Glasgow NHS Board at their meeting on 22 February 2005. The full documentcan be viewed at the following link:</p><p><ahref="http://library.nhsgg.org.uk/mediaAssets/Board%20Papers/05-11.pdf">http://library.nhsgg.org.uk/medi…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will increase the frequency of monitoring of waiting times in accident and emergency departments to more than once a year.
Answer · Andy Kerr: Yes. I regard this as essential to ensure that NHS boards meet the Executive’s target of no-one waiting more than four hours in Scottish accident and emergency departments by the end of 2007 – a target we announced in <i>Fair to All, Personal to Each </i>publ…
26 Apr 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider the recommendation of the Final Report of the Emergency Medical Admissions Scoping Group of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland that a primary care physician/general practitioner should be a member of the multi-professional team in every acute assessment centre.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive supports the principle of establishing multi-disciplinary teams to deliver unscheduled care in a range of settings. There are a number of examples of this working effectively in Scotland. General Practitioners can, as part of the team …
24 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many home economists and dieticians have been employed in each year since 1996 to provide advice and support on diet and nutritional matters to families with young children, broken down by NHS board.
Answer · Andy Kerr: Centrally held information does not explicitly identify the number of home economists or dieticians employed to provide advice and support on diet and nutritional matters to families with young children.</p><p>Information on dietetic staff employed in NHS Sco…
24 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there have been any special initiatives for local authorities and NHS boards to encourage under-fives to eat healthily.
Answer · Andy Kerr: <i>Adventures in Foodland</i>, an NHS Health Scotland resource for carers of children in the zero-to-five age group was launched in June 2003. This resource gives important background information on topics such as healthy eating, oral health and physical acti…
24 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what measures are in place for NHS boards and local authorities to ensure that health professionals, residential staff and day care staff with care responsibilities for children under five have a working knowledge of the dietary and nutritional needs of young children.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The <i>National Care Standards for Early Education and Childcare up to the age of 16</i> requires that children and young people in early education and child care settings (where food is provided) have access to a well-balanced and healthy diet which takes ac…
24 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what action has been initiated through the Chief Pharmacist and the Scottish Health Education Department on identifying methods to accelerate the introduction of low-sugar or sugar-free paediatric medicines, as referred to in Eating for Health: A Diet Action Plan for Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Association of the BritishPharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), which represents around 100 companies in the UK producingprescription medicines, has agreed that, wherever possible, liquid formulationsfor new medicines should be sugar-free. However, not all medi…
24 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the research findings are on new approaches to changing eating behaviour by targeting groups such as schoolchildren, pregnant women and elderly people, as referred to in Eating for Health: A Diet Action Plan for Scotland.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The main new approaches to changing eating behaviours in these groups and details of research carried out or being carried out is shown below.</p><p><i>Schoolchildren</i>. The school meals policy “Hungry for Success” (HFS) isfocussed on changing eating behavi…
23 Feb 2005 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what methods, other than a streaming system, are planned to supplement existing triage arrangements in accident and emergency departments.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Executive is committed to working with the NHS to reduce waiting in accident and emergency departments, to streamline care, and to improve the experience of patients. We will deliver the Executive’s target that, by the end of 2007, no-one will wait more t…