Chamber and committees

There were 34.7 WTE vacant posts for qualified occupational therapists in NHSScotland at 31 March 2000, the latest date for which data are available centrally. Of these, 14.7 WTE had been vacant for more than three months.There are currently no centrally held data for vacant posts for occupational therapists within local authority social work departments.

We have stated in Our National Health: A plan for action, a plan for change that we intend to develop primary care services and strengthen the role of LHCCs. We intend to build on the successes of LHCCs and, within the next few months, set out the next steps in their development.The work of the LHCC Best Practice Group has identified a substantial range of service improvements. Audit Scotland has also carried out an evaluation of LHCCs' range of activities. Reports from both pieces of work are expected shortly and will, together with other related work, inform what the Executive does next on this issue.

The HIV Health Promotion Strategy, published by the Executive in January this year, recommended that the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health and the Health Education Board for Scotland should review current arrangements for advice on HIV to travellers. This is now in train.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:We are grateful to the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health, the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Nursing Officer, Health Education Board for Scotland and Health Board Consultants in Public Health Medicine for supporting us in developing policies to reduce the potential for HIV transmission in prisons.

The remit of the Scottish School of Primary Care is to promote and co-ordinate primary care research activity and to increase research capacity, in order to provide the high quality research evidence needed to inform decisions made by practitioners, managers and patients.The school receives £100,000 per year to fund administration costs during its foundation phase. The school will in the future be responsible for co-ordinating research grant awards of approximately £1.2 million over three years.The school's objectives are to co-ordinate primary care research activities, identify gaps in current research, stimulate collaborative studies and consider ways of improving the implementation of research findings. It will also seek to increase the number of researchers involved in primary care R&D activities across Scotland and enhance the accessibility of research education and training.

Our position on this, as on other recommendations of the Health and Community Care Committee, is as set out in the response we provided to the committee on 24 January. The response was debated in Parliament on 14 February.

It would be for any individual community body to consider the viability of any land purchase. Community bodies applying for community right to buy under the draft Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will be required to present to Ministers, at the right to buy stage, detailed plans for the land which they wish to purchase under this legislation. The proposed legislation provides for Ministers to decide whether an application to exercise a right to buy can proceed. In making their decision, Ministers must consider whether the right to buy would be in the public interest and compatible with sustainable development. A community body seeking to exercise a right to buy must therefore address these issues in its plans.

No comprehensive record of all research into the long-term use of benzodiazepines is held centrally. Within the Scottish Executive Health Department, however, the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) has responsibility for encouraging and supporting research to improve both the health of the people in Scotland and the services provided by the NHS. The Executive is aware of eight ongoing benzodiazepine research projects in the UK. Details of these projects are available from the National Research Register (NRR), a copy of which is in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

We expect discussions regarding the restored supply of the BCG vaccine to be concluded shortly.The Executive wrote to health board immunisation co-ordinators in Scotland on 15 March to establish how many secondary school children are currently eligible to be vaccinated but who remain unvaccinated. Priority will be given to those pupils due to leave school this summer.

The Care Development Group has been asked to provide a clear definition of what is meant by personal care as part of its terms of reference. The group will decide how best to fulfil its remit and will report in August 2001.