Monitoring individualchildren living with parents affected by substance misuse is the responsibilityof local agencies. We expect services to work together to identify children atrisk of harm from parental substance misuse and to take appropriate,coordinated action in the best interests of the child.

Informationabout the number and ages of dependent children of clients accessing a newepisode of treatment or care for their drug misuse is now being recorded in theexpanded Scottish Drug Misuse Database. In addition, Ministers in March 2006wrote to chief officers seeking assurances about children in their areas affectedby drug misusing parents. This exercise generated an assurance from all agenciesthat they are working effectively, at an individual level, to protect children.

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Government to set strategic directions for the drugs agenda, aswell as to establish national guidelines and the integration of services. Providing support for children insubstance-misusing households, including those whose parents are prescribedmethadone, is the responsibility of local services. We expect services to work together to identifychildren at risk and take coordinated action in the best interests of thechild. The Scottish Government’s policies underpin this support, and a wide range of activity is being takenforward around children in substance-misusing households, including thedevelopment of Getting It Right for Every Child, approaches to ensuring parentsare clear about their responsibilities, better support for young carers andongoing work in child protection.

Capital funding of£32,907,065 has been allocated under the Primary and Community Care PremisesModernisation Programme for 2006-08 for premises to support extended NHS dentalservices and community training of dentists and dental technicians includingthe provision of both new dental centres and the improvement of some existingfacilities.

It is planned that extendedservices will mainly be provided by NHS salaried dentists. NHS general dentalpractitioners, however, already practice from some of the facilities beingimproved and NHS boards concerned are investigating the potential for generaldental practitioners to practice from the new buildings. The premises fromwhich general dental practitioners may in future practice currently account intotal for £10,748,000 of the above funds, although it is not possible at thistime to confirm the precise amount that may be attributable to general dentalpractitioner use.

In addition to thisprogramme, since April 2005 NHS general dental practitioners have been eligiblefor recurring support with their premises rental costs for existing premises orwhen they wish to move to new premises. During 2006-07 over £6 million was paidto dentists in rent reimbursement.

Finally, £2.5 million hasbeen provided in this financial year for dental practice improvements andfunding is also available to NHS general dental practitioners under the ScottishDental Access Initiative.

No NHS funding is providedfor dentists who provide only private treatment.

No decisions havebeen made on the number and type ofteaching and research posts that the proposedAberdeen dental school would require. An informed response to the question cannot, therefore,be provided at this stage.

We are working with NHS boardsand other partners to deliver the objectives set in the published Mental Healthof Children and Young People (Bib. number 38415) Delivering a Healthy Future(Bib. number 42137) and Delivering for Mental Health (Bib. number 41410). Theseprovide a framework with key timetables milestones which include attention totraining and workforce planning; increasing bed numbers; early intervention;supported transitions; improved primary care; and better planning and deliveryof specialist care.

We are working to reduce thenumber of admissions of children and young people to adult beds by 50%; toincrease dedicated in-patient beds; to provide mental health training for allthose working with or caring for looked after or accommodated children andyoung people; and to ensuring that a named mental health link person isavailable to every school to better inform all concerned and help identifyneeds at the earliest point.

We are also working withHeads Up and the Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health on developingnational clinical support and better information.

These initiatives will helpensure the right level and quality of care is delivered to children and youngpeople across Scotland.

No maximum has been set for the number of patients who can betreated by dental students in outreach centres.

Actual information on theoutreach centre in Aberdeen shows that 3,405 patients were booked for treatmentby dental students in its first full year.

The number of patients will,however, vary between outreach centres according to several factors, includingthe type of patients being treated. For example, the outreach centre at Bridgeton inGlasgow will treat children only and will see fewer patients as a consequence.

More information on thenumber of patients being treated by dental students in outreach centres willbecome available as more centres open and become fully functioning.

Our policy involves changeto the training and educational infrastructure to increase numbers of trainedstaff to deliver the range of evidence based psychological therapies, includingcognitive behaviour therapies, by our 2010 timetable.

NHSEducation for Scotland are taking work forward to develop greater capacityto deliver a range of psychological interventions, such as cognitive behaviour therapy.Building on this work we will be taking forward a mental health collaborative changeprogramme that will work with every NHS board to look at improvements to makingevidence based psychological interventions available, in a range of settings,for all ages.

Visits this year to all NHS boardshave included attention on implementation progress and plans including service models to enable staff to deliverpsychological therapies in an expanded range of settings. Progress is beingmade but there is more to do.

Currently NHS Tayside,Grampian and Fife offer colorectal cancer screening for all eligibleadults aged 50 – 74. These health boards are the first to participate in thenew screening programme which commenced in June 2007. The remaining health boardswill join the screening programme in a phased roll-out over the next two years.

The bowel screeningprogramme commenced in June 2007 with the former pilot NHS Boards (NHS Fife,Tayside and Grampian) first on the programme. The remaining NHS boards will bephased in over the next two years at the dates indicated in the following table.All eligible men and women between the ages of 50 - 74 years will be invited toparticipate in the programme through completion of a faecal occult blood testat home every two years.

NHS Fife	June 2007
NHS Grampian	June 2007
NHS Tayside	June 2007
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	September 2007
NHS Orkney	October 2007
NHS Forth Valley	December 2007
NHS Lothian	February 2008
NHS Western Isles	July 2008
NHS Borders	September 2008
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	December 2008
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	April 2009
NHS Lanarkshire	August 2009
NHS Shetland	October 2009
NHS Highland	December 2009

 

Orthodontic treatment is freeto children under 16 subject to there being a clinical need for the work to be undertaken.