Chamber and committees

Housing benefit policy is reserved to the UK Government. Our position is that only independence will provide the Scottish Government with effective control over welfare matters. However we have made our concerns about the impact of the UK Government’s under occupancy restrictions on fostering clear to the Department for Work and Pensions. We have also asked that kinship carers be recognised as a distinct group within the UK benefits system.

The Scottish Government has no plans to run a separate consultation on the Draft Bill. We are moving the existing Bill Advisory Group onto a ministerial basis where I will chair future relevant meetings. COSLA have been invited to nominate a Vice Chair. The group will meet regularly throughout the lifecycle of the Bill, before and during its parliamentary stages.

We intend to consult on the draft Bill in the coming months and anticipate introducing it next year.

Information on patients resident in Scotland who were treated in hospitals in England for each month from April 2010 to June 2012 has been provided. This information is for all inpatients and day cases (elective and emergency admissions).

Information on the cost is not collected centrally.

Count of Finished Admission Episodes ^1,2,3 carried out in an English NHS hospital for patients whose NHS Board of Residence is in Scotland; April 2010 to June 2012

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

p Data for 2012-13 is provisional and may be subject to change. Data is currently only available to June 2012.

1.All inpatient and day case admissions are included, elective and emergency.

2.Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector is included.

3.A finished admission episode (FAE) is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

A breakdown of the Miscellaneous Board Allocations is provided in the following table. This budget line primarily covers support to NHS Boards long-term financial planning developments recognising explicit future commitments within specific Boards e.g. NHS Dumfries and Galloway £4 million for anticipated double running costs for the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary replacement. Other expenditure within this line includes specific smaller values where final amounts are not yet confirmed e.g. support to the Thalidomide Trust, digital mammography developments.

The Provision for contracts and other services budget line contains provision for primary care contractors pay awards, contracts for new and extended vaccine programmes and other contracts; the budgets relating to contracts are not disclosed within the budget document as contractual negotiations are not yet completed.

Information on how many pain consultants there are in multidisciplinary chronic pain teams in each NHS board area for (a) adult and (b) children services, is not held centrally. However, I would like to refer the member to the Benchmarking Report published by Healthcare Improvement Scotland on 26 October 2012:

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/programmes/long_term_conditions/chronic_pain/chronic_pain_update_report.aspx.

The audit has identified the current resources available in relation to NHS Board populations and provides up to date information on the provision of pain management services in each NHS Board area. This information will assist NHS boards to identify any gaps and variation in local services and provides recommendations to inform planning and assist in the implementation of the Scottish Service Model for Chronic Pain.

A chronic pain Managed Clinical Network has been running effectively in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for some time.

In addition the Scottish Government has recently provided pump priming funding for the establishment of service improvement groups/Managed Clinical Networks to NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian.

The National Steering Group are working closely with a number of boards to develop similar approaches.

Information on how many pain consultants there are in multidisciplinary chronic pain teams in each NHS board area for (a) adult and (b) children services, is not held centrally. However, I would like to refer the member to the Benchmarking Report published by Healthcare Improvement Scotland on 26 October 2012:

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/programmes/long_term_conditions/chronic_pain/chronic_pain_update_report.aspx.

The audit has identified the current resources available in relation to NHS Board populations and provides up to date information on the provision of pain management services in each NHS Board area. This information will assist NHS Boards to identify any gaps and variation in local services and provides recommendations to inform planning and assist in the implementation of the Scottish Service Model for Chronic Pain.

The Lead Clinician and the National Chronic Pain Steering Group are currently exploring a range of options for the provision of specialist chronic pain services. These will be discussed at a meeting scheduled with National Services Division of NHS National Services Scotland in early December 2012.

Estimates of the numbers of adults and children usually resident in each Scottish health board area at 30 June 2011 are given in the following table.

Estimated Population of Scotland, mid-2011

Estimates of the population by sex and single year of age are published annually by National Records of Scotland and are available for NHS boards and other geographies on their website at:

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/population/estimates/index.html.