Chamber and committees

The support arrangements for those to be discharged from NHS continuing care should reflect all the needs of the individual. A framework is in place that encourages and facilitates health boards, local authorities and others to participate in joint planning and purchasing of care services.The funding of care packages for individuals in the community is a matter for the local agencies. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide appropriate social care and are planning to spend £42 million this year on services for people with mental health problems, a 15% increase on plans for last year. Health boards are planning to spend £495 million, a 4% increase on last year. Since June an additional £34 million has been released to assist in ensuring appropriate care arrangements are in place to allow people to be discharged from hospital and to avoid the need for admission to hospital.

The Additional Cost of Teaching (Dental) allocations to Dundee and Glasgow Dental Schools are negotiated annually. The allocations for 2000-01 increased by 5% for both dental schools, well above the rate of inflation, representing a significant increase in real terms. This increase in funding will allow the Dental Schools to ensure the further development of improvements in the teaching of dental students. Negotiations on funding for the expansion of the Professions Complementary to Dentistry detailed in the Action Plan for Dental Services are currently ongoing with the three main dental teaching institutions.

The members of the Lothian Drug Evaluation Panel are:

Consultant in Public Health (Chair)

Senior Lecturer in Health Economics

Consultant Physician

Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

Director of Medicines Management

Trust Drug Information Pharmacist

2 Trust Chief Pharmacists

2 General Practitioners

Medicines Management Adviser (Primary Care)

Assistant Director of Commissioning (Health Board)Lothian Formulary Pharmacist

There is no evidence in Scotland that there are insufficient ICU beds available for this purpose. The Executive has invested in both ICU and HDU beds and the nurses with critical care skills needed to staff those beds.

The key issue about elective ventilation is that the procedure is illegal. It breaches the common law principle that, while patients have the right to give or withhold consent to treatment, such consent extends only to treatment intended to benefit the patient. Elective ventilation is however undertaken with the intention of benefiting the potential recipient of the patient's organs. It is therefore academic that the discussion document produced by the British Transplantation Society in 1995 stresses that informed consent of the next-of-kin would be needed before a patient were to be accepted for elective ventilation.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-11742.

The Minister for Finance announced to Parliament on 6 October 1999 that NHS surplus working capital balances which, under Treasury rules, could not be used for the NHS would be carried forward in the Scottish Consolidated Fund until it can be used for the repayment of housing debt in 2001-02.This was a technical adjustment that ensured that the Scottish Executive was able to utilise excess cash, which would otherwise have had to be returned to the Treasury.The table provides a break down of the NHS cash balances referred to.

Health Board	Trust	£000	£000
Argyll & Clyde	Royal Alexandra	2,600
	Inverclyde Royal	449
	Total Health Board		3,049
Borders	Borders General	1,452
	Borders Community	1,147
	Total Health Board		2,599
Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway Acute	1,112
	Total Health Board		1,112
Fife	Queen Margaret	2,349
	Fife Healthcare	9,411
	Total Health Board		11,760
Glasgow	Glasgow Dental	70
	Glasgow Royal Infirmary	615
	Stobhill	319
	West Glasgow	627
	Total Health Board		1,631
Grampian	Grampian Healthcare	479
	Total Health Board		479
Lanarkshire	Monklands & Bellshill	6,614
	Lanarkshire Healthcare	444
	Total Health Board		7,058
Lothian	West Lothian	6,217
	Edinburgh Healthcare	7,706
	Total Health Board		13,923
	TOTAL ALL HEALTH BOARDS		41,611

The actual figure returned at £41.6 million is marginally less than the £44 million originally estimated. This arose from a late adjustment following a further review of Trust balance sheets.The answer to question S1W-10993 explained why these balances could not be used for NHS purposes.

The UK guidelines on drug misuse, "Drug Misuse and Dependence Guidelines on Clinical Management", provide clear guidance on the prescription of methadone and other substitute drugs. Implementation of that guidance will help to address the variations in prescribing practice reported in the Effective Interventions Unit's (EIU) recent consultation workshop report.In addition, we are working closely with Royal College of General Practitioners and others to look at what further training requires to be given to GPs to help them implement this guidance.The EIU will also be looking at the training and support needs of GPs and primary care teams as part of its detailed work, now under way, on effective shared care arrangements for drug users. There will be a focus on the development of local training strategies to meet local needs. The EIU will be consulting widely with practitioners over the next few months.

There is some evidence to suggest that children who have used sweets in the form of cigarettes are more likely to smoke. The Scottish Executive is concerned about anything which encourages children to smoke, but has no power to ban or otherwise restrict the sale of these products in Scotland. However, we will continue to do all we can to ensure that children are given the facts about the dangers of taking up smoking and to encourage adults to set a good example.

This information is not available centrally.