Chamber and committees

I expect health boards and NHS Trusts to hold full and open discussions about the outcome of Accountability Reviews at public sessions of their board meetings. It is important that key messages given and actions agreed at the reviews are promulgated locally in this way and through incorporation in public documents such as Health Improvement Programmes, Corporate Contracts and Trust Implementation Plans. The Scottish Executive has no plans to publish separate records of the Accountability Reviews.

The Special Education Needs Advisory Forum will as a priority review all aspects of the Records of Needs process and will advise on revisions to the guidance.

Health boards have a statutory duty to comply with requests for help from local authorities to assist them in fulfilling their duties under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. This includes assisting local authorities to meet their statutory duty to provide services for children with visual impairment and to design services so as to minimise the effect of this impairment. This may include the use of visual aids to enable these pupils to access the curriculum. Funding arrangements are a matter for agreement between local authorities and health services.

Local practices regarding referral arrangements will vary and may be subject to relevant local protocols.

The Statement of Conduct issued by the Orthoptists Board at the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine states: "An orthoptist shall communicate and co-operate with registered medical or dental practitioners in management of patients. It is desirable that an orthoptist should not undertake treatment of a patient unless he/she has the approval of a registered medical or dental practitioner."

Separate statistics are not kept for the processing times to award pensions to teachers with different conditions.

Teachers with myalgic encephalomylitis (ME) whose claims are initially rejected are encouraged to reapply should their condition worsen or not respond to treatment. The majority of ME sufferers do recover as illustrated by two studies reported in the Association of NHS Occupational Physicians (ANHOPS) guidelines which note that 60-70% of patients make a good functional recovery within four years. However, these extended timescales for recovery mean that the period between initial application and award can be extensive and this is recognised in the generally accepted medical guidance.

Statistics specifically relating to suffers from myalgic encepalomyelitis have not been kept for the full period requested. The figures available are given in the table below.

Year	Applications received	Applications approved
1999-2000	30	19
1998-99	28	14
1997-98	22	17

The average period from receipt of the request to the issue of the decision is currently around five weeks.

It would be inappropriate to have a list of illnesses which were automatically considered permanent for the purposes of ill health pensions. The decision is made, following medical advice, on an individual basis and depends on the severity of the condition in each particular case.

The conclusions of a UK inter-departmental review group on ill health pensions will be published shortly and the Scottish Executive plans to review its procedures in the light of the conclusions of that review.

The procedures for awarding ill-health pensions to teachers were last fully reviewed in 1997 when the current contract for the provision of medical advice to the Scottish Public Pensions Agency was awarded.