Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has no plans to introduce a large retail supplement, but it will bring forward legislation to implement a public health supplement to support preventative spend measures.

It is estimated that around 240 retail premises listed on the valuation rolls for Scotland will be liable for the public health supplement. This represents 0.1% of all non-domestic properties in Scotland.

Further details will be available when the legislation for the public health supplement is laid in parliament in the New Year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03598 on 8 November 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The figures published in the Draft Budget on 21 September 2011 for the local government finance settlement include the income from the public health supplement, which will be used to support preventative spend.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03465 on 1 November 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

As part of the Safe and Sustainable Programme in England, service standards for Children's Congenital Cardiac Services have been developed. The standards against which English paediatric cardiac centres have been assessed require a minimum of 400 operations per year and 4 paediatric cardiac surgeons. The Scottish Paediatric Cardiac Surgery Unit in Glasgow carries out around 300 operations per year and has a team of three cardiac surgeons.

The Scottish Government is committed to maintaining a high quality, sustainable paediatric cardiac surgery service in Scotland. However, to provide external and independent assurance of the recognised high quality of the paediatric cardiac surgery services provided by Yorkhill Hospital, it was announced in June this year that a review of the service would be undertaken by the Safe and Sustainable Programme team, but with the understanding that standards relating to numbers of staff and activity levels should be interpreted within the context of the differing population and geography and the criticality of retaining a paediatric cardiac surgical and interventional cardiology service in Scotland.

The review, led by Sir Ian Kennedy, took place on 3 November 2011.

The Distinction Award Scheme is specifically for eligible NHS Scotland Consultants. The information requested for 2009 and 2010 is contained within the Scottish Advisory Committee on Distinction Awards (SACDA) Annual Reports. These can be found on the SACDA website:

http://www.shsc.scot.nhs.uk/upload/file/national_committee_services/sacda/annual_report/2011_sacda_annual_report_2010_awards_round.pdf.

The 2011 Annual Report will be published shortly. For ease, the information for each of the three years requested, is as follows:

Notes:

* New Awards were frozen and only re-cycled awards were available for distribution

** The scheme was fully frozen.

Radiography reporting of plain films or other modalities has been supported by the Scottish Government over the last 10 years and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Diagnostic Collaborative continue to support this in practice.

Most recently, a Radiology Subgroup has been set up with a remit to explore opportunities for making efficiencies in radiology across the West of Scotland (WoS), as part of the remote working work stream in the WoS efficiency and productivity work. The group have looked at alternative options for service delivery including skill mix development, which supports task shifting from Radiologists to appropriately trained radiographers and the possibility of a regional radiology reporting service.

The Chief Health Professions Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, have convened a Specialist Advisory Board, including the Royal College of Radiologists and the Society of Radiographers, to explore joint working and sustainable delivery of radiology and imaging services.

Colleges are independent employers and are responsible for taking their own decisions on staff-related matters, where appropriate in consultation with the recognised trade unions. Ministers have no role in determining the number of staff employed by Clydebank College.

Matters relating to the funding of individual colleges fall within the responsibility of the Scottish Funding Council I have asked its Chief Executive to write to the member.

There are three paediatric cardiac surgeons based at Yorkhill Hopsital.

The number of operations carried out in each year since 2007-08 are as under.