- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-28892 by Shona Robison on 25 November 2009, whether all pregnant woman qualify for vouchers under the healthy start scheme.
Answer
No. Healthy start is open to pregnant women and families with children under the age of four who are on income support, income-based jobseekers'' allowance or child tax credit (but not working tax credit unless their family is receiving working tax credit run-only) with an income of £16,040 a year or less.
All pregnant women under the age of 18 also qualify for the scheme, whether or not they are on benefits.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-28892 by Shona Robison on 25 November 2009, how many pregnant women have benefited from the healthy start scheme.
Answer
There are currently 37,957 healthy start beneficiaries in Scotland, of which approximately 3,000 are pregnant women.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-28778 by Shona Robison on 23 November 2009, in what respects NHS (a) Fife, (b) Forth Valley, (c) Greater Glasgow and Clyde, (d) Lothian and (e) Tayside do not fully comply with national guidance on IVF treatment.
Answer
NHS (e) Tayside has implemented some of the updated criteria but patients are returned to the waiting list after each unsuccessful cycle of infertility treatment. NHS (c) Greater Glasgow and Clyde offers two cycles of treatment, instead of the recommended three. However, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde include suitable frozen embryos within a cycle of treatment, whilst many other NHS boards do not.
NHS (a) Fife, (b) Forth Valley and (d) Lothian have still to implement the updated criteria from the 2007 Review of Infertility Services.
Infertility Network Scotland is working directly with NHS boards to ensure that the voices of patients are heard at a local level in the planning of infertility services in Scotland. The charity will concentrate their initial work on NHS boards not compliant with national guidance.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how many health and social care workers have been (a) invited to have the influenza A (H1N1) vaccination and (b) vaccinated.
Answer
Health boards have indicated that vaccination has been offered to all those in the initial priority groups, including health and social care workers. A mop up exercise continues to take place to the end of January however, to ensure that everyone in the initial priority groups has been invited for vaccination.
To date, 50.8% of eligible frontline health care staff have received the vaccination and 32.1% of eligible frontline social care staff have been vaccinated.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-28625 by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 November 2009, how many of the 1.3 million people in the priority groups for the influenza A (H1N1) vaccination programme have been vaccinated.
Answer
Health boards have indicated that vaccination has been offered to all those in the initial priority groups. Data for patients in the clinical priority groups estimate that the uptake rate for vaccination to date equates to 45.6% for all clinical at risk groups.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive when the influenza A (H1N1) vaccination programme for children aged 0 to 5 will be completed.
Answer
It is anticipated that the vaccination of young children will be completed by the end of January, with some mop up activity into mid-February, to ensure all children aged over six months and under six years are invited for vaccination.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive whether primary school children with asthma are in the priority category for the influenza A (H1N1) vaccination programme and, if so, for what reason some of them have not yet been invited for vaccination.
Answer
The at risk groups as announced on 13 August 2009 includes all people who have asthma that requires continuous or repeated use of systematic steroids or with previous exacerbations requiring hospital admission.
The H1N1 vaccination programme was launched on 21 October and proceeded with a phased roll out from this date. Health boards have indicated that vaccination has been offered to all those in the initial priority groups and a mop up exercise continues to take place to the end of January to ensure that everyone in the initial priority groups has been invited for vaccination.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to ensure that there are dementia specialist nurses in either every (a) NHS board area or (b) hospital.
Answer
It is the responsibility of individual health boards to ensure they have the right staff and services in place to meet the clinical needs of the population within their board area, including the needs of those with dementia.
In Scotland the precise term dementia specialist nurse is not recognised as such; rather there are clinical nurse specialist and nurse consultants as registered nursing professionals who have also acquired additional knowledge, skills and experience, together with a professionally and/or academically accredited post-registration qualification in a clinical specialty. They practice at an advanced level and may have sole responsibility for care episode or defined client/group such as those with dementia.
We will set out future plans for dementia service development and improvement in the National Dementia Strategy which will be published in April.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how many children aged 0 to 5 have contracted the influenza A (H1N1) virus and how many of them have been hospitalised.
Answer
An estimated 7,991 children aged 0 to four years in Scotland contracted H1N1, experienced symptoms and were taken to see a GP. An estimated 21,036 children aged five to 14 years in Scotland also contracted H1N1, experienced symptoms and were taken to see a GP.
A total of 1,482 H1N1 laboratory confirmed individuals have been admitted to hospital. Where the age had been specified or was known, 255 (17.2%) were aged under five years.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 January 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-28778 by Shona Robison on 23 November 2009, when all NHS boards will be fully compliant with national guidance on IVF treatment.
Answer
All NHS boards in Scotland recently completed a detailed questionnaire on the provision of infertility services in their area, and this question was included. Infertility Network Scotland are currently following up responses to the questionnaire, and will meet with NHS boards who are not compliant with national guidance on infertility early in 2010.
Once complete, a summary of responses from NHS boards will be placed in the Scottish Parliament''s Information Centre (Bib. number 49114).
