Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is aware of this research.

The Prostate Cancer Risk Management Pack which supports the Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme was issued to NHS boards (urologists, histopathologists, prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing laboratories) and all general practitioners in Scotland in 2009. The programme provides guidance to medical practitioners on the situations in which it is suitable to offer PSA testing, the information and guidance that should be provided to patients before PSA testing is undertaken, and the support that may be required by men as they deal with the consequences of the PSA test and any resulting diagnosis.

When the Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme was sent out to each health board the identified leads in each area were asked to make sure the information was made available to all GPs, any locum GPs or new GPs as they came into post. The Prostate Cancer Risk Management pack is also available on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/cancer/publications.

The decommissioning of offshore oil installations on the UK Continental Shelf is controlled through the 1998 Petroleum Act, and is administered by the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC).

During 2008 and early 2009, Scottish Enterprise formed a steering group which led a year-long industry consultation to develop an understanding of the key focus areas of weakness and bottlenecks which currently inhibit UK supply chain capability development. One of the outputs from this was the requirement for an industry forum to unify the disparate clusters of bodies and initiatives in the North Sea decommissioning market, and bring clarity and commonality to this emerging industry.

This led to the creation of Decom North Sea (DNS), which for the first two years of operation was funded by Scottish Enterprise, Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC, UK) and Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE).

Decom North Sea is now the primary body leading the way to form critical mass of decommissioning expertise and to help address the issues that impede investment and innovation in the sector.

Scottish Enterprise continues to support DNS through membership and retain an observer status on the board with input on strategic direction. Support is also targeted at project specific activity which is to the benefit and development of the sector as a whole. In particular, there is a focus on acquiring robust information relating to specific decommissioning programmes and timelines which is made available to DNS members.

Scottish Enterprise also supports, through direct account management, a number of companies active in the decommissioning sector. Companies are also referred via Decom North Sea for consideration to the account management portfolio.

In addition, Scottish Enterprise works directly with ports within its regional boundaries to support development of infrastructure where appropriate, as do Scottish Development International and Highlands and Islands Enterprise which have regional priority for Lerwick.

There is currently a project (Dales Voe deep-water decommissioning base) proposed by the Lerwick Port Authority which the Scottish Government and Highlands & Islands Enterprise are keen to support.

The Dales Voe deep-water decommissioning base project proposed by Lerwick Port Authority in partnership with AF Decom, a Norwegian decommission company, will create a deep-water quay and offshore oil & gas decommissioning yard in Shetland with the capability to compete with Norway. If successful this project will create employment in Shetland, help to maintain economic activity for the oil & gas supply chain in the region, and retain skills and opportunities in the port of Lerwick, Shetland.

The Scottish Government recognises the vital contribution small business start-ups make to our economy as we move forward with economic recovery and growth, and is firmly committed to maintaining a supportive business environment, ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to stimulate and grow small businesses.

These measures include the transfer of responsibility for local economic development, including the Business Gateway, to local authorities. The Business Gateway is the key delivery channel offering a first point of contact for all publicly funded advice to business in Scotland. The services that are available through the Business Gateway are wide-ranging and cover a number of aspects associated with starting and growing a business, including advice and support on franchising.

Workshops promoting franchising as a business opportunity are delivered by the Business Gateway and are designed to provide appropriate information to those individuals who see a franchise as the most suitable means to allow them to realise their business aspirations. The advice available includes information on the structure, financial aspects and legal considerations of franchising.

Decommissioning of North Sea Oil Rig infrastructure is overseen by the UK Government as part of the work of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Over the past 10 years the significant decommissioning programmes were –

MCP .01 - the topside structures came to Shetland for disposal.

Indefatigable – being disposed in a yard on Tyneside.

North West Hutton - Able yard on Tees-side

Maureen - predominantly went to Norway for disposal

Camelot - Able yard on Tees-side where it was substantially refurbished and re-used.

Other projects which were decommissioned were either FPSOs (Floating, Production Storage and Offloading structures which were taken off site and redeployed or small subsea installations which came to various yards in the UK.

Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs) are designed to measure and give an overall indication of the quality of a service. The prostate cancer QPIs are not intended to be all encompassing or a single reference point for either men with prostate cancer or healthcare professionals.

The National Cancer Quality Steering Group has an extensive work programme which aims to develop QPIs for all tumour types. For some tumour types this will include QPIs for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In addition, it is developing generic QPIs which will be applicable to all tumour types. Under the auspices of the National Advisory Group for Palliative and End of Life care, QPIs are also being developed to cover this aspect, regardless of disease type.

With regards to balanced information on prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing this is available in the form of a Prostate Cancer Risk Management Pack which was issued to NHS boards and all general practitioners in Scotland in 2009. The programme provides guidance to medical practitioners on the situations in which it is suitable to offer PSA testing, the information and guidance that should be provided to patients before PSA testing is undertaken, and the support that may be required by men as they deal with the consequences of the PSA test and any resulting diagnosis. The Prostate Cancer Risk Management pack is available website at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/cancer/publications.

NHS inform was launched in 2010 which is a health information service to provide the public, patients and carers with a wide range of quality-assured health information online at www.nhsinform.co.uk. This includes information on cancer.

Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs) have been developed to asses the quality of a service and are not specifically intended for high risk groups.

Patients have been involved in the development process for each of the tumour specific QPI groups. Part of the development process also includes a wider engagement period. This allows other patients, individuals and organisations to provide detailed comment on the draft QPIs. These additional views and comments are all considered prior to QPIs being published.

In order to ensure that QPIs can be measured accurately and in a comparable way, a level of technical detail is required within the QPI measurability specifications and the accompanying data definitions.

The tumour specific development groups considered the language utilised and endeavoured to ensure that QPIs are easily understood. Focus groups were also held with patients who understood the need for a level of detail to be included within the QPIs and found the glossary included in each engagement document helpful.

The Scottish Government has reviewed the draft standards and also contacted the regional cancer networks to ask the tumour specific groups for their views. Overall the feedback has been positive and supportive of the principles and ethos of the standards. However, rather than them being endorsed as a set of measurable standards for monitoring they should be viewed as a framework of principles which could form the basis of service design for people with prostate cancer.

The networks also reported that many of the draft standards are ones that cancer clinicians and services in Scotland already aspire to and are already achieving. Many of the draft standards are equally applicable to all patients, irrespective of cancer type.

The National Cancer Quality Steering Group (NCQSG), which is a sub group of the Scottish Cancer Taskforce, has a programme of work to develop quality performance indicators (QPIs) for all cancer types. It is anticipated that the indicators will be used to monitor and drive quality improvement in cancer care across the NHS in Scotland. Prostate cancer is one of the first tumour types to have QPIs developed and they will be launched later this year.

There were calls from clinicians and third sector groups about including other specific cancer types and children and young adults within the Detect Cancer Early Initiative. Some of these groups provided evidence for their requests and others provided practical examples of how awareness could be raised or what could be done to result in earlier presentation. There were similar calls from groups and individuals who declared no tumour specific interest. Prostate cancer was mentioned in seven of the responses.

The initiative was not altered from breast, colorectal and lung in the first instance to take account of these representations. This was because there was recognition that the programme should start with tumour groups where there is likely to be more impact, learning what was useful and what should be avoided, before rolling out to other tumour groups.

The current Detect Cancer Early Initiative is funded to run from 2012-2013 to 2014-2015. Progress against the HEAT target for the programme will be continually assessed but it is too early to say when the initiative will be extended. In anticipation, however, of early success of the programme, the Programme Board have started to consider developing and applying a set of criteria against which potential new tumour types could be scored and prioritised for inclusion.

This information is not collected centrally by the Scottish Government. However, data on the number of men who have been diagnosed with and died from these cancers in each year since 1999 are available on the Information Services Division's Cancer Statistics website:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Cancer-Statistics/

The statistics can also be viewed via this link by Health Board, Regional Cancer Network or an all Scotland basis.