Chamber and committees

All pupils at all stages of secondary education should be able to expect a high quality of personal support in school.

The HM Inspectorate of Education report, Improving Scottish Education, published in January 2009 states, with regard to secondary schools, The quality of pastoral care for young people and the positive ethos overall are strengths in almost all schools. This is reflected in what young people themselves say. In almost all schools, climate and relationships are constructive and engaging.

It is for local authorities and schools to ensure that they have plans and strategies in place to allow schools to provide appropriate support in those circumstances where a pupil requires access to specialist counselling services.

Bids have now been received and accepted from NHS boards, on a regional basis. The bids focus on increasing access to specialist services.

Additional funding was announced on 6 May to support further developments in the specialist child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) workforce

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-23262 on 7 May 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Improving the mental health and wellbeing for children and young people is a priority for the Scottish Government. We continue to encourage NHS boards to consider Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce development within their workforce plans.

Workforce Planning is well established in NHSScotland and a National Workforce Planning Framework is in place to support and assist NHS boards in planning their future workforce needs, taking into account current supply and future demand. A nursing workforce planning model is in place at national level to determine the need for student nurses, including mental health nurses, to meet future demand and takes into account the workforce characteristics of the current nursing supply. NHS boards should also factor changes to services and their likely impact on staff groups into their own workforce planning processes.

Based on this information the Scottish Government Health Directorates commissions a nationally agreed number of student nurses and midwives to the six higher education providers of nursing and midwifery education. As part of this commissioning process, the Health Directorates will ensure that the future need for CAHMS nurses is taken into account.

NHS Education for Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Government Health Directorates, is working with both education providers and NHS boards to maximise the exposure of both mental health and children''s nursing students to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services as practice placements.

We continue to work with NHS boards and their partner agencies to address the challenges of implementing such a large service agenda across multiple organisations and agencies.

Getting it right for every child (Bib. number 46523) has a particular emphasis on ensuring that where more than one agency is providing support, there is a co-ordinated approach, based on shared assessment using common language, with a lead professional to co-ordinate action.

Our recently published action plan for mental health improvement “ Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland “ identifies mentally healthy infants, children and young people as a strategic priority. It reiterates that the challenges and complexities require action by government, including local government, by the NHS, by organisations in the voluntary and private sectors, as well as people themselves. Plans to support interagency working include support to local interagency implementation and learning and workforce development.

We are currently working to establish a waiting time target for referral to treatment for specialist child and adolescent mental heath services for 2010-11. A Project Delivery Board has been established to support and inform this and attention is being focussed on workforce, services, data collection, quality of care, referral protocols and information systems.

We continue to encourage NHS boards to consider the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) workforce development within their workforce plans and reflect this priority agenda in local spending plans. We are also supporting them to reconfigure the existing workforce and introduce a new mix of skills and competencies to meet these challenges. Specifically for specialist CAMHS we have recently made available £2 million new money each year, to be matched by NHS boards, to accelerate the development of specialist CAMHS inpatient services and supporting intensive community services.

In addition, on 6 May we announced £6.5 million over three years to expand the dedicated child psychology workforce and to open up additional training places and posts.

The Report of the Review of Infertility Services in Scotland, including an update in criteria, issued to NHS boards in April 2007. A further letter issued in December 2008 with a recap of the updated criteria and a request for progress on implementation in each NHS board area.

This information is not collected or held centrally in Scotland as the data is owned by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

It is important to distinguish between those who are eligible for NHS treatment and those who do not meet the criteria. Many couples pay for assisted conception services as they are not currently eligible for NHS treatment.

As there is no data held or collected centrally in Scotland, it is difficult to gather an accurate picture of the numbers involved at present. We are currently considering options on infertility services in Scotland and the barriers to data collection are included in these options.

We are currently considering options for infertility services in Scotland.