- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Prescribing Analysis data is in arrears and, if so, by how much and how primary care trusts can check practitioners' compliance with prescribing policies.
Answer
Scottish Prescribing Analysis reports are normally provided quarterly to individual prescribers and Primary Care Trusts. The provision of this information is currently two quarters behind normal schedules. This is due to a delay in the processing of prescriptions. Production of the first of the outstanding reports is planned for the end of March.The routine issue of good practice guidance, which is not affected by the delay in prescription processing, should continue to influence prescriber behaviour.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide a breakdown of the drugs budget according to category of treatment for specific illness and disease, broken down by health board, for each of the last two financial years.
Answer
Information on drug costs is provided routinely in a number of reports including Scottish Prescribing Analysis (SPA) and financial schedules. These relate to British National Formulary chapters and sub-sections. Information relating to the last two financial years is given in the table "Information on Prescribing Cost and Items" published by the Common Services Agency, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. no. 12055).However, there are relatively few drugs that link specifically to an illness or disease. Therefore such information is not available.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-12337 by Susan Deacon on 8 February 2001, how many patients are being given medication for the treatment of attention deficiency disorder and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and what type of medication is being administered.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how much the NHSiS spent on the use of bank and agency nurses in each of the last three years.
Answer
This information is not available.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to encourage the expansion of the private health care sector as recommended in the British Medical Association Report Healthcare funding review, and, if so, how this will be done.
Answer
We have no plans to do so.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 21 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it plans to take to address the reductions in 1999-2000 of the numbers of clients receiving home care of (a) up to two hours per week, (b) two to four hours per week and (c) more than 10 hours a week, as set out in Table 2A of the Audit Scotland Performance Indicators 1999-2000, Social work: Comparing the performance of Scottish councils.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has committed substantial additional resources to extending and improving on the provision of care to people in their own homes. In each of the next three years respectively, the allocation of resources for Community Care is set to increase by over £90 million, £135 million and £195 million. This will include a major additional investment for home care services.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 20 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is any evidence of the Common Services Agency overpaying or underpaying dentists, opticians, doctors and pharmacists.
Answer
In making payments to over 8,000 primary care contractors each month it is inevitable that occasional errors or estimates will result in over or underpayments. Normally such items are corrected immediately following payment. Other than this there is no evidence of over or underpayments for opticians or doctors.For dentists, the recently introduced Commitment Payment is currently calculated on an estimated basis and as a result of this a number of dentists may have been temporarily over or underpaid by a small amount. Commitment payments comprise less that 2% of total payments to dentists. For pharmacists, delays resulting from the commissioning of the new computer system mean that all contractors are paid estimates, which will be more or less than the correct payment. However, all over or underpayments are currently being corrected within three months.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 20 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are any computer virus problems in the Common Services Agency and, if so, how it will ensure accurate payments to health professionals.
Answer
The Common Services Agency (CSA) has no current computer virus problems. The CSA's networks are fully protected by high quality firewalls and individual systems have additional virus checking software installed. All virus checking software is regularly updated.These procedures are designed to ensure that all systems including those calculating payments to health professionals are secure.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 20 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it plans to take in response to the study by the National Radiological Protection Board linking high-voltage electricity pylons with childhood leukaemia.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer I gave to question S1O-03093 on 15 March 2001.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 20 March 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, following the publication by the Health Education Board for Scotland and Glasgow Healthy City Partnership of Understanding the Policy Ma'e - A guide to Social and Health Policy in Scotland, it will set out comprehensively its own strategies and guidelines in these areas.
Answer
Understanding the Policy Maze itself gives a useful overview of the field. More recent Executive policy documents are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre.
