Chamber and committees

Seventy-nine people attended the West of Scotland Action Forum on Youth Employment, 13 of whom were private sector employers.

The Scottish Government is opposed to the basing of nuclear weapons in Scotland. It is our clear position that an independent Scottish Government would work with the rest of the UK to secure the earliest safe withdrawal of Trident from Scotland.

We continue to work with our stakeholders to pursue a distinctive approach to preventative spend, an approach recently reinforced in the draft budget for 2013-14 which I presented to the Parliament on 20 September.

Lord MacLean, Chairman of the Vale of Leven Hospital Inquiry has been unwell and is improving. The inquiry team continues to make good progress whilst Lord MacLean recuperates and to date has not formally requested an extension. If there is a change of date to the publishing of the final report I will inform the members.

Information on the numbers of emergency ambulance rostered shifts which are not filled because of sickness or other absence is not held centrally. This is an operational matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

When a potential gap on a roster appears Scottish Ambulance Service managers undertake a risk assessment of the situation, taking into account coverage elsewhere within the ambulance station or local area, availability of paramedic response units and predicted demand. In the vast majority of instances (over 80% in this financial year) these shifts will be offered to other staff on overtime.

When they are not offered as overtime shifts, this is because managers consider that it is safe not to cover that shift, taking into account the factors mentioned above. Putting the safety of patients first is at the heart of this risk assessment process. The risk assessment procedure has been agreed as clinically safe and appropriate by the Scottish Ambulance Service Medical Director.

Community planning partnerships (CPPs) are already expected to ensure that a decisive shift to a preventative approach is embedded in the single outcome agreements (SOAs) that they agree with the Scottish Government. This expectation was reaffirmed and strengthened by the review of community planning and SOAs undertaken earlier this year in partnership between the Government and COSLA. The Scottish Government and COSLA have agreed that CPPs are to put new SOAs in place for 1 April 2013, and those new SOAs will be expected to include a strong focus on prevention.

The Scottish Government is clear that the single crewing of traditional double crewed emergency ambulances should only happen in exceptional circumstances, such as short notice sickness absence when cover cannot be secured. The Scottish Ambulance Service is working hard to try and deliver this.

The information requested is not held centrally for the period sought.

However, across Scotland the Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that total incidence of single crewing for April to June 2012 (inclusive) was 469 shifts, representing 1.0% of those shifts that were rostered to be double crewed. Of that total, many of the instances of single crewing occurred due to exceptional circumstances. Excluding these, the figure for single crewed shifts under non-exceptional circumstances was 0.7% across Scotland.

The information requested is not held centrally.

However, the latest annual national NHS complaints statistics (covering the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012) were published last month by the Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland, and are available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Quality-Improvement/Publications/2012-09-25/2012-09-25-Complaints-Report.pdf.

ISD published statistics show that for the second year in succession there has been a reduction in the number of complaints to the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The figures show that 214 complaints were recorded between 1 April 2011 and 31 March 2012 compared to 374 recorded between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011. This represents a 43% reduction in complaints.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that it does not use private ambulances in Scotland.