Chamber and committees

Vaccination policy in the Scotland is informed by recommendations by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the UK-wide independent advisory committee that provides advice to all UK health departments on vaccination. The JCVI have considered rotavirus vaccination and have concluded that while rotavirus vaccines would reduce the incidence of gastroenteritis in the population, at current vaccine prices they do not meet the current economic criteria for the introduction of a new vaccine. The JCVI keep all recommendations under review.

Psychiatric Emergency Plans (PEPs) set out locally agreed, multi-agency plans for the safe and appropriate transport of people assessed as requiring emergency detention in hospital. PEPs cover a range of topics including the role of the Police and other agencies in emergency detention and the provision of appropriate places of safety. PEPs are all developed in keeping with the principles of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. Every health board has produced a PEP, agreed with the local authority, police and partner agencies. The PEP describes the procedures to be followed in identifying a suitable place of safety.

In addition the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) has published and distributed a diversity booklet, A Practical Guide, to all police staff within the Scottish Police Service. In relation to the issue of place of safety, the booklet contains a section specifically about mental health.

All Scottish forces also have a place of safety policy in place which provides police staff with much more detailed information and guidance relating to local arrangements for place of safety.

The ACPOS Mental Health Group continually monitors issues around the place of safety and has a strong working relationship with the Mental Welfare Commission. Indeed, work is currently ongoing to consider the reporting process for place of safety to the Mental Welfare Commission.

As part of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) of the General Medical Services contract, GP practices hold a register of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychoses - the Mental Health register. The combined number of patients per 100 is reported as part of National Statistics and published by Information and Statistics Division (ISD), Scotland. There are no plans to collect data on the individual conditions.

Under the GMS contract GPs are paid for maintaining a register of patients with a diagnosis of dementia. We recognised in 2007 that the number of people on the dementia register was less than we expected from survey data available. That is why we put in place a target for NHS boards to deliver agreed improvements in the early diagnosis and management of patients with dementia and specifically linked to the number of people on the dementia register. The Mental Health Collaborative is also continuing to support NHS boards in their delivery of this target.

Regular briefings to professionals on a range of organisms, including rotavirus, are provided by Health Protection Scotland (HPS) via the HPS surveillance systems and through the HPS weekly report, which is available on the HPS website. At present no public facing activity to raise awareness of rotavirus is planned.

Vaccination policy in Scotland is informed by recommendations by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the UK-wide independent advisory committee that provides advice to all UK health departments on vaccination. In making their statement of 20 February 2009 on rotavirus vaccination the JCVI considered a range of evidence, including information from the USA.

No such assessment has been made.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) published the standards for integrated care pathways in mental health (Bib. number 44374) in December 2007 and established an accreditation system which was rolled out to the NHS boards in December 2008.

This accreditation system is intended to be incremental and will support continuous quality improvement within mental health services, to ensure that NHS boards are moving forward with the development and implementation of mental health ICPs and that those ICPs are in line with the national standards.

NHS boards are now working towards achieving foundation level accreditation, focusing on a number of the process standards. A number of NHS boards have already come forward and been successful in achieving foundation level accreditation; all results will be made public once the final ICP accreditation panels are held in August 2009.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisations (JCVI), the UK-wide independent advisory panel that provides UK health departments with advice in relation to vaccines, receives regular updates on the surveillance of rotavirus from the Health Protection Agency and Health Protection Scotland. This surveillance has been taken into account by the JCVI when making its decisions about the rotavirus vaccines.

The latest available information on hospital admissions from a rotavirus infection is shown in the following table.

Number of hospital admissions with a diagnosis of rotavirus infection, by NHS board of residence; financial years 2003-04 to 2007-08:

NHS Board	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Ayrshire and Arran	23	23	28	22	32
Borders	-	3	-	-	2
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	1	4
Fife	24	49	37	32	23
Forth Valley	17	33	25	10	16
Grampian	103	97	69	66	68
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	55	67	44	49	53
Highland	18	20	13	10	9
Lanarkshire	40	54	51	40	20
Lothian	3	5	8	6	14
Orkney Islands	-	1	-	-	-
Shetland	-	1	-	1	2
Tayside	5	7	2	9	5
Western Isles	2	-	-	1	-
Scotland	291	361	277	247	248

Source: Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland; Scottish Morbidity and Mortality Record 01(SMR01). Zero cases (-).