Chamber and committees

Liaison has taken place betweenofficials in the Scottish Executive Health Department and the Health and SafetyExecutive on the locus of the HSE under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at WorkAct 1974, as it relates to the possible risks to public health from radiofrequencyemissions from mobile phone base stations. The guidelines for public exposure to radiofrequency radiation that havebeen adopted by the UK are those of the International Commission on Non-IonizingRadiation Protection (ICNIRP) as set out in EU Recommendation EC/519/1999. The viewof the HSE is that since exposures to radiation from base stations in areas thatare normally accessible to the public demonstrably are well within these guidelinelevels and since there are no established public health effects for exposures belowthese limits, the activities of the mobile phone operators comply with their statutoryduties as employers. The HSE expects that the operator or landlord will ensure thatthe public are properly excluded from any areas where guideline levels might beexceeded.

Since 1 July 2005, therehave been three appeals allowed for the erection of mobile telephone masts inAyrshire. All three were in East Ayrshire.

There have been no appeals,in relation to the erection of mobile telephone masts, received from theadministrative area of any of the local authorities in Ayrshire since 1 July 2005.

Making best use of beds inacute hospitals is an important operational responsibility for NHS boards. TheHealth Department supports a number of initiatives and programmes to help boardsoptimise the use of acute hospital beds. This includes programmes to manageacute hospital admissions, so that where possible patients are treated in othersettings without the need for admission to hospital; targets and funding aimedat reducing delayed discharge of patients from acute beds; initiatives toincrease the proportion of surgery that is carried out on a daycase basis,reducing the demand on overnight beds, and the “streaming” of elective andemergency work to reduce disruption to elective surgery schedules as a resultof emergency demands.

These programmes andinitiatives are consistent with and in many cases flow from Delivering forHealth, published in November 2005, which set out the Executive’s visionfor the future of the NHS. We recognise the importance of shifting away from amodel of treating illness based on episodic, acute care in hospitals, increasinglythrough emergency admissions, towards a model of anticipatory and preventativecare. In particular, Delivering for Health placed a requirement on allNHS boards to develop a three year development programme to introduce a numberof changes, including treating day surgery (rather than in-patient surgery) asthe norm for planned procedures, and actively managing discharge and length ofstay. Delivering for Health can be accessed at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/02102635/26356.

Elderly or teenage patients shouldnot be treated in mixed-sex wards.

A programme of work to eliminatemixed sex wards was completed in autumn 2005. The NHS is expected to take stepsto avoid any reintroduction of mixed sex wards. Where, for example, in intensivecare units or in an emergency this is unavoidable, patients should be moved as apriority to single-sex accommodation as soon as their condition allows.

Work to eliminate mixed sex wardswas completed in autumn 2005. We are not aware of any hospital which still makesroutine use of mixed-sex general wards. Any evidence that the privacy or dignityof patients’ is being compromised is followed up proactively.

Additionally, NHS Quality ImprovementScotland’s Clinical Governance and Risk Management Standards now include a requirementto ensure the dignity and privacy of patients is safeguarded at all times and compliancewith this standard is monitored in their regular reviews.

The Executive is committed toensuring that patient safety is viewed as a priority by NHS boards.

In October 2005, NHS QualityImprovement Scotland published standards for clinical governance and risk managementwhich NHS boards are currently being reviewed against. This standard is availablefrom:

www.nhshealthquality.org/nhsqis/servlet/controller?p_service=Content.show&p_applic=CCC&pContentID=2762.

NHS boards are expected to implementthese standards. It is mandatory that NHS boards have in place systems to managerisk, and this includes risks to patients.

A prisoner remains the responsibilityof the prison service when he or she is in hospital, and the hospital authorities are expected to work with prisonstaff to ensure appropriate security while the necessary clinical care is provided.

It is for local NHS and custodystaff to carry out a risk assessment in each case to ensure that the conditionsof security in which the prisoner is treated are appropriate and not excessive.However, it is ultimately for the hospital to decide where to accommodate the patientbased on their need for treatment and care. While local arrangements would not necessarilyexclude an open ward, prisoner patients tend to be managed in side rooms.

The information requested isnot held centrally. However, in 2004 NHS National Services Scotland ISD carriedout a project aiming to estimate the number of women in Scotland whohad given birth in 2002 and were diagnosed with depression within a year of thebirth. The results and full discussion are shown as part of the Clinical OutcomesIndicators Report 2004 and can be found at www.indicators.scot.nhs.uk/Outcomes/2004_Health_Indicators_Report.pdf.

The number of appeals receivedfrom all authorities in relation to planning applications for the erection of mobiletelephone masts since 1 April 2005 is 105. None have been received from North Ayrshire councilduring that period.