Chamber and committees

The case for establishing NHS24 as a special health board was considered as part of the review of non-departmental public bodies. This delayed the date on which the Order could be laid before Parliament and, to avoid delay to essential project work, the Order had to be brought into force as quickly as possible. A letter of explanation was submitted to the Presiding Officer when the Order was laid.

This is indicative of a change in the pattern of home care services through the period and of a shift toward increasing the proportion of clients requiring more intensive levels of care at home. We are continuing to prioritise home care services and have provided councils with additional resources to extend and improve the home care provision in their areas. The increases in resources for community care of £90 million, £135 million and £195 million in this and each of the next two years respectively will involve major additional investment in home care services.

The maintenance of standards and skills in the area of medical practice is the responsibility of a range of people and groups. The General Medical Council (GMC), which is an independent regulatory body, sets standards of practice for doctors. It is the responsibility of each individual doctor, as a professional practitioner, to keep his or her standards and skills up to the level required by the GMC. NHS employers also have a responsibility to support and manage Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the introduction of the new appraisal system for consultants will underpin this. The Scottish Executive currently provides substantial financial input to the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (SCPMDE) to enable them to support doctors in undertaking CPD.

To enable a patient to give informed consent they are entitled to a clear explanation of their condition and any treatment, investigation or procedure proposed, including risks and alternatives, before agreeing on the course of action. They must also be given the time and any support, e.g. the services of an advocate, they need to ensure that they fully understand these issues.These entitlements form part of the generic standards developed by the Clinical Standards Board for Scotland. These standards require clinical services to regularly and systematically monitor the extent of patient involvement in making decisions about their own care and to ensure its effectiveness. The Clinical Standards Board is currently carrying out a review of the implementation of these standards across Scotland.

Information on the total cost of the methadone treatment programme is not available centrally.Total costs include the cost of methadone, fees to pharmacists to dispense methadone and to supervise consumption, the cost of counselling and social support and fees to GPs participating in shared care schemes. There are also costs of providing specialist drug services.Health boards received an additional £2 million for all drug treatment services this year, giving a total of £14.352 million.

At present, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is not recommended for routine use in the childhood immunisation programme. However, studies to assess the possible role for pneumococcal immunisation in the UK programme are currently ongoing and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), an independent expert committee which advises UK Health Departments on vaccination and immunisation issues, will review the evidence once these studies have been completed.

The Scottish Executive shares the concerns of Her Majesty's Government about the impact of illegally imported cigarettes and alcohol. There is close contact with HM Customs and Excise Law Enforcement Directorate about a range of serious and organised crime issues through the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.The UK Government announced, in March 2000, the "tackling tobacco smuggling" strategy, which aims to put cigarette smuggling into decline within three years. The strategy will deliver more aggressive enforcement activity, which will detect and deter other forms of smuggling, including alcohol.

There are currently no plans to alter the way in which compensation is claimed and settled for acts of possible clinical negligence. Our efforts are directed at continually improving clinical standards and performance and so reduce the incidence of negligence.

In line with the undertaking in Our National Health: A plan for action, a plan for change, the Health Department is working with NHSScotland to develop a new comprehensive performance management framework which will assess health improvement, clinical outcomes and standards of service alongside good financial management. It is intended that the new framework will provide information to underpin NHS Boards' annual reports, which will set out achievements and performance at board level. Boards will be free to publicise performance information in other ways.

The Executive recognises and welcomes the contribution made to oral healthcare by the whole dental team, including that of the professions complementary to dentistry. It is examining how to encourage more dentists into remote, rural and deprived areas. However, the level of service that can be delivered by dental therapists is a reserved matter, and I refer Mary Scanlon to the answer I have given to question S1W-16389.