Chamber and committees

No: as set out in the relevant national guidance (available at: www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2010_01.pdf), only proposed major service change in the NHS is subject to ministerial approval.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, who hold the responsibility for the planning and provision of local services, made the Scottish Government aware of its plans to re-provide the activity from ward six at the Vale of Leven Hospital in late November 2015, following the approval of these plans by the board's Acute Services Committee.

The redesign plans, made to ensure that services are as efficient as possible and due to be implemented in April 2016, will allow the majority of patients currently treated on ward six to be treated in the hospital’s surgical day bed unit, with extended operating hours. The remaining patients (those who require an inpatient stay) will be accommodated in the Lomond Ward at the Vale. As such, the plans will have no effect on the level of surgical service and after care received by local people at the hospital.

The number of school leavers not in education (higher education or further education), employment or training are shown in the following table:

1. Includes school leavers on activity agreements or in voluntary work. These are considered positive destinations in the Summary Statistics for Attainment, Leaver Destinations and Healthy Living publication. The figures presented also include school leavers where their destination was recorded as ‘unknown’.

2. The methodology and data available for 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 changed meaning caution should be exercised when making comparisons over time.

Source: The data included in the table comes from Skills Development Scotland’s (SDS) follow up of school leaver destinations. Information on the destination of leavers from publicly funded schools was provided to the Scottish Government by SDS. SDS collected information on the destination of each young person they had identified as being a school leaver during September 2014 (initial destination) and March 2015 (follow-up destination). The follow up destinations data provided in this table presents information on the outcomes of young people approximately nine months after leaving school.

While these figures outline the number of school leavers who are not in education, employment or training, the main headline measure used by the Scottish Government is the percentage of school leavers in a positive follow up destination. This considers voluntary work and activity agreements to be positive destinations, alongside higher education, further education, employment and training. The figure for 2013-14 school leavers not in a positive destination on this basis is 4,142 (including unknowns).

The percentage of school leavers in positive destinations at the time of the follow-up was 84.0% in 2007-08 and 91.7% for 2013-14 school leavers.

Section 52 of the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 provides ministers with powers to direct integration authorities, including integration joint boards, in relation to their carrying out of functions conferred on them by the Act.

Resource transfer arrangements have been superseded by the resource delegation arrangements required by the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014. The legislation requires agreement to be reached on budgets for delegation to integration authorities by 1 April 2016.

The £250 million of integration funding provided for in the local government settlement will be allocated to health boards, to whom ministers will give written direction to delegate the full sum to their integration authorities. Integration authorities will then allocate their share of the resources to their local authorities to meet the commitments set out in the settlement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-30038 on 4 March 2016. 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.

The Scottish Government remains committed to maintaining and improving services at the Vale of Leven Hospital. We have been consistently clear that we see a bright future for the hospital, which plays a crucial role in the local healthcare system.

Information on how many (a) consultants, (b) doctors, (c) nurses, (d) allied health professionals, (e) administrators and (f) other staff have been based at the Vale of Leven Hospital in each year since 2007 is not held centrally. Specific local information will be available from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Under this government, staffing levels in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have increased by 916.3 WTE, or 2.8 per cent.

Integration joint boards will be required to set a budget that allocates their share of the integration funding included within the local government settlement, to meet as a minimum the settlements’ commitments in relation to social care, i.e. in relation to the living wage and changes to the charging thresholds.

The number of (a) private and (b) voluntary/ third sector workers in the care sector in each local authority area is available in the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) annual workforce survey (table 4). This can be found on the SSSC website (http://data.sssc.uk.com/data-publications).

The investment required to meet the living wage in contracted out adult social care services will vary across authorities in Scotland according to local circumstances, for example, the volume and balance of contracted out care and the progress some councils have already made towards payment of the living wage. We would expect a more finely grained analysis of the situation regarding wages and fair work within contracted out care services to be undertaken at integration authority level.

The National Clinical Strategy was developed by a small team led by Dr Angus Cameron, on loan from NHS Dumfries and Galloway, and overseen by a group chaired by Professor Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director.

In developing the strategy, there was engagement with a wide variety of staff across Scottish Government and NHS boards, with clinicians and their representatives. The engagement process included meetings with chief executives, finance directors, directors of planning, medical directors, nurse directors, chief pharmacists, area clinical forum leads, directors of public health, chief operating officers, HR directors, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Scottish Partnership Forum, eHealth advisors, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Surgeons and the British Medical Association. In addition there was significant clinical engagement with meetings open to all clinicians held in Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William, Glasgow and Dumfries.

Membership of the oversight group was as follows:

Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scottish Government, Chief Medical Officer

Fiona McQueen, Scottish Government, Chief Nursing Officer

John Matheson, Scottish Government, Finance Director (until January 2016)

Dr Andrew Longmate, Scottish Government, Senior Medical Officer

Professor Craig White, Scottish Government, Divisional Clinical Lead

Elizabeth Porterfield, Scottish Government, Head Strategic Planning and Clinical Priorities

Karen MacNee, Scottish Government, Senior Policy Analyst

Robert Calderwood, Chief Executive, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Cathie Cowan, Chief Executive, NHS Orkney

John Turner, Chief Executive, NHS24 (until July 2015)

Jill Young, Chief Executive, Golden Jubilee Foundation

Lindsay Burley, Chair, NHS National Education Scotland

Jeane Freeman, Chair, Golden Jubilee Foundation