There are currently no plans to grant franchises for the management of poorly performing NHS hospitals in Scotland.

The Accounts Commission report Full House - Theatre Utilisation in Scottish Hospitals, which was published in June 1999, highlighted that hospitals were generally performing well in the delivery of services, but that there were variations in how well hospitals and surgical specialties used operating theatre time. The report made a number of recommendations for actions to maximise the use of NHSScotland theatre times. Theatre utilisation has an impact on waiting times experienced by NHSScotland patients. The Scottish Executive has made reducing waiting, particularly in the clinical priority areas of cancer and heart disease, a key priority for NHSScotland. NHS trusts are responsible for making plans and taking actions, including organising theatre capacity and availability, to achieve waiting times targets. Waiting times performance is monitored by the Health Department and NHS boards and trusts are held to account for their performance.

The Scottish Executive is currently undertaking a wide-ranging review of all audiology services in consultation with the Public Health Institute of Scotland, The Royal National Institute for the Deaf and service users. The report will be available later this year. There has been no public commitment made by the Scottish Executive to consult on mental health services for deaf and deafblind people.

Inverness Airport terminal building is owned and operated by Inverness Air Terminal Limited.

Funding is now in place through the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education for the education of all the professionals complementary to dentistry. Initial work is concentrating on the largest of these professions, dental nurses. Structures are being developed which link dentists, NHS trusts and boards, Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education, colleges of further education and training organisations.

The review of undergraduate funding identified an imbalance in the NHS support for Dundee compared to other UK schools. This has been progressively adjusted to benefit Dundee over the last four years. Review of the numbers of students required to achieve the target output of 120 in conjunction with the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) resulted in financial gain for the Universities training dental students.

A commitment payments scheme was introduced from 1 April 2000 to reward general dental practitioners for on-going commitment to NHS dentistry. This is under regular review jointly with the profession. Schemes for retaining dentists in Scotland in rural and remote areas and for return to work are presently being considered as part of the ongoing review of the dental workforce.

In the last 12 months, 213 dental nurses qualified in Scotland. Training of dental nurses is in transition and during 2002-04 all training will be transferred to a new Scottish Vocational Qualification system linked to colleges of further education or training organisations. It is planned that the present output will be maintained during this transition.We are currently working with the relevant organisations to establish an appropriate structure to deliver on the target for basic training for dental technicians.

Funding has been made available to increase the total funded student places by 40 with the addition of two new courses, one at Edinburgh and one at Dundee. Additional funding is planned for 2002-03 dependant on decisions on a joint hygienist/therapist course, which, once established, would fulfil the target for an additional 50 funded places. I also refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-21870.

A cost appraisal exercise for enhancing the hygienist course to produce dually qualified hygienists and therapists is being completed at present at Glasgow Dental School. If this does not highlight significant barriers to the plan then we would hope to be able to confirm commencement of such a course in 2002 or 2003 as indicated in the strategy.