Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government introduced the use of the newly developed WHO Growth Charts for all children born on or after 1 January 2010. The WHO Growth Charts are based on optimal growth, which is that of breast-fed babies.

As part of the introduction of these charts, the Scottish Government hosted 4 Train the Trainer events and requested NHS boards to identify key staff who would be responsible for rolling out training to staff. In addition, the Scottish Government published an information booklet Using the new UK-World Health Organization 0-4 Growth Charts for all frontline staff responsible for weighing and measuring children. Finally, training materials for the use of new charts have been developed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and can be downloaded from:

www.growthcharts.rcpch.ac.uk

The Health for all Children (Hall 4) guidance issued in 2005 set out the core programme of child health screening and surveillance contacts. This programme identifies that babies and young children should be weighed and measured at birth, within the first 10 days then at six to eight weeks, three months, four months, 13 months, between three and five years of age and at entry to primary school. Consultation is currently underway regarding the possibility of introducing a check at 24 to 30 months.

Parents and carers are advised to contact their general practitioner or health visitor if they have any concerns regarding their child''s development.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-34139 on 15 June 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-34139 on 15 June 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The Scottish Government formally endorsed, and adopted as policy, the World Health Organization''s Guidance recommending exclusively breastfeeding for an infant''s first six months. Appropriate types and amounts of solid food should then be introduced alongside continued breastfeeding for up to two years, or for as long as the mother chooses.

It is the responsibility of employers as part of the selection process to satisfy themselves that candidates have the required level of communication skills to function in the role providing high quality, safe and effective patient care.

This is for the employer to determine when the job description is drawn up and to be applied during the short-listing and interview process.

The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) is part of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, a special health board, whose role is to support NHS boards and their staff to improve the quality of healthcare in Scotland.

SIGN has a range of policies to ensure that patient and carer experiences and preferences are included in the development of their guidelines. These include patient focussed literature searches, speaking to patient organisations, checking with other NHS organisations whether there is any local research on patient views and seeking direct feedback from service users if required. Patients and other groups also have the opportunity to comment on the draft recommendations and influence their final form through a national open meeting which is held for each draft SIGN guideline. Further detail on these policies is available on the SIGN website at www.sign.ac.uk.

The application of all Scottish Government funding directed at the provision of affordable housing is determined by the relevant local authority, in this case The Highland Council, through their published Housing Strategies.

Consequently the National Trust for Scotland''s first contact should be with Highland Council in order to assess the priority for housing investment in Canna, based on key indicators, including housing demand and need.

The Scottish Government''s Affordable Housing Investment Programme offers a wide range of housing grants, the full extent of these can be found at

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/Investment/grants.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the quality and efficiency of all Scotland''s public services. The ability to simplify and share resources is the right way to deliver real benefits at a local level, while helping to protect front line services. The Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting and facilitating collaboration between services at a local level.

Scotland''s three emergency services have already delivered a number of successful joint initiatives, with a number of others in the planning stages. Some examples are quoted below

Scottish Ambulance Service / Police

Joint Ambulance and Police Station in Afford, Grampian.

Imminent sharing of premises with Police in Lairg, Highlands and Islands.

Scottish Ambulance Service / Fire and Rescue Services

There are a number of Fire Stations around the country used as tactical deployment points for ambulance crews to enable a quick response to the public.

Volunteer Fire Fighters in remote and rural communities have been trained to give vital first aid to patients while the ambulance is on its way.

The Scottish Fire Services College has trained over 70 members of the Scottish Ambulance Service, Special Operations Response Teams in the use of breathing apparatus.

Scottish Ambulance Service/ Fire and Rescue Services / Police

National tripartite fleet initiative through collaborative procurement of fleet products and joint maintenance including fleet workshops in Ayr, Kilwinning, Lochgilphead and Glenrothes.

In addition, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) and the Scottish Government are jointly hosting a collaboration event on 22 June 2010 to facilitate dialogue between the Scottish Police Service and other parts of the public sector about the potential scope for future collaboration and sharing services.

Better Together, Scotland''s Patient Experience Programme will be publishing the provisional results of the 2009-10 inpatient experience survey on the Scottish Government and Better Together Websites on 27 July 2010. This provisional release will provide a report on patients experiences of admission, ward and hospital environment, staff, medicines and discharge for each hospital in Scotland where the number of responses are above 20 patients. The reports will identify the top 10 and bottom 10 scoring questions for each hospital. The report will also show where a hospital''s positive percentage for a particular question is significantly less than the Scotland positive percentage. This will enable NHS boards and their patients to identify where a hospital is provide a high quality experience for its patients and where there are areas for improvement. These provisional results will then be updated and presented in a national report which will be published on the 28 September 2010 on the Scottish Government and Better Together Websites. The national report will provide Scotland level results and comparisons between NHS board areas.

Patients can judge the performance of NHS boards through a variety of means. The NHSScotland section of the Scotland Performs website (www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/partnerstories/NHSScotlandperformance) provides NHS board-level data against the HEAT targets. In addition, ISD (www.isdscotland.org) provide performance information on a wide range of topics, and Health Protection Scotland (www.hps.scot.nhs.uk) provide performance information on healthcare associated infection (HAI).

The public are also able to attend NHS board annual reviews, at which ministers hold the health board to account for the performance of the board. The boards'' self assessments of performance used in annual reviews are available from their websites.

Another source of performance information is directly from the NHS boards: board papers, are published on the boards'' websites and include their monthly HAI reports.