Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-17741 on 31 July 2018. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

This review is still underway and no service change decisions have been made.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde has assured the Government that they have been liaising with the Scottish Health Council throughout the review to ensure that the development of their plans are fully informed by appropriate stakeholder engagement. Should formal proposals be developed that are considered major service change then they must be subject to full public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval.

This information is not held centrally. This is due to there being no consistent definition of a ‘forensic unit’, with NHS Boards using intensive psychiatric care units (IPCUs), mixed purpose rehabilitative facilities or General Adult Psychiatry (GAP) facilities to accommodate forensic patients which are not routinely described as ‘forensic units’.

We do not hold information centrally on the occupancy rate for specific NHS Forensic Units. This is due to there being no consistent definition of a 'forensic unit', with NHS Boards using a variety of mental health services to manage patients who require to be treated primarily by forensic services. However information in relation to occupancy rates by ward type can be found at Table 3 of the Inpatient Census, 2017 - Part 1: Mental Health & Learning Disability Inpatient Bed Census - Part 2: Out of Scotland NHS Placements; http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0052/00524621.pdf

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde has been reviewing local breast services since late 2016 to ensure that they are consistent with national policy and clinical best practice. The Health Board has confirmed that the early work in this review was informed by engaging with a group of patients who had recently undertaken breast cancer treatment, to ensure the relevant patient experience was taken into account. NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde advises that this patient group was identified by breast cancer nurses in each of the geographical sectors of the Board, including the Clyde area.

It is important to note that this review is still underway and that no service change decisions have been made. NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde has assured the Government that they have been liaising with the Scottish Health Council throughout the review to ensure that the development of their plans are fully informed by appropriate stakeholder engagement. Should formal proposals be developed that are considered major service change then they must be subject to full public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval.

Whilst it is important to note that no decisions have been made in respect of this review, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde advise that equality impact assessments have been carried out and published on its website. These can be accessed at: www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/249604/eqia-clyde-sector-breat-care-service.htm and www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/246367/breast-services-review.htm.

No. The local review is still underway and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde are continuing to engage with the Scottish Health Council on the appropriate level of ongoing stakeholder engagement, including the view as to whether the Board's emerging proposals might be considered major change.

Information in relation to the number of patients in forensic services by NHS Board can be found at Table 9 of the Inpatient Census, 2017 - Part 1: Mental Health & Learning Disability Inpatient Bed Census - Part 2: Out of Scotland NHS Placements;

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0052/00524621.pdf

There is no consistent definition of a ‘forensic unit’ as some health boards use intensive psychiatric care units (IPCUs), mixed purpose rehabilitative facilities or General Adult Psychiatry(GAP) facilities to accommodate patients being managed primarily by forensic services. As such patients in low secure services are defined on a patient basis rather than by unit.

There is one high secure facility (The State Hospital, Carstairs), three health boards operating medium secure facilities which operate on a regional basis (Lothian-South & East, Glasgow - West and Tayside-North). There are nine health boards operating low secure units (Grampian, Highland, Tayside, Fife, Forth Valley, Ayrshire & Arran, Dumfries & Galloway, Lanarkshire, and Greater Glasgow and Clyde).

Local Authorities have the statutory responsibility for the delivery of homelessness services in their area. The vast majority of the funding which the Scottish Government provides to tackle rough sleeping is included, but not separately identifiable, within the annual local government finance settlement.

The Scottish Government is providing local government with a finance settlement in 2018-19 amounting to £10.7 billion. The vast majority of this funding is provided by means of a block grant It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including funding to tackle rough sleeping, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Additionally, in order to catalyse change as part of the work initiated by last year’s Programme for Government and the work of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group, we have allocated an additional £220,000 to be spent on proven rough sleeping interventions in 2018-19. This is on top of £328,000 worth of investment (£262,000 from the Scottish Government and £66,000 from Action Group members) to take forward the immediate actions recommended by the Action Group to combat rough sleeping last winter. We will be further considering the learning from last winter’s activities as we consider how to ensure initiatives are effective and sustainable in the long term, as part of ongoing work to implement the recommendations of the Action Group and of the Local Government and Communities Committee.

Details of each local government finance settlement since 2007 are available on the Scottish Government’s website via the following link https://beta.gov.scot/publications/local-government-finance-circulars-index/