Chamber and committees

There is no appeal process for Formal Adult Warning (FAW) letters issued by the police. Recipients of such letters may accept or refuse them. If a FAW is refused it is a matter for the police to consider what further action, if any, should be taken. Such action may include referring the case to the Procurator Fiscal.

Information on the numbers of cases refused, those taken to trial and those resulting in a conviction is not held centrally.

Options developed by the Obesity Treatment Subgroup were considered by the National Planning Forum at a meeting on 1 July 2011. Work is continuing to develop a planning framework for obesity treatment that will enable equitable access to weight management interventions.

The planning and provision of NHS services is a matter for NHS boards. SIGN Guidelines provide recommendations for effective practice to be taken into account when services are developed for the management of clinical conditions. NHS boards are expected to deliver safe and effective care to their resident population and are monitored across a range of outcome indicators. SIGN guidelines are used to inform the performance management and clinical governance of NHS boards.

There is no specific criminal offence of misnaming an area or locality.

This information is not held centrally.

A table showing the number of older people who received care in their own homes in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area, has been placed in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib no. 53054)

Individual staff discipline is always the responsibility of individual NHS Boards, who are accountable and report to Scottish Ministers on overall performance.

In response to the Mental Welfare Commission’s report in May into Mrs V’s care in 2008, the Health Secretary asked NHS Tayside to take immediate action to implement the report’s recommendations directed to it.

NHS Tayside has produced an improvement plan which addresses each of the specific recommendations directed to it in the report. This is in addition to improvement work undertaken by the Board since 2008 on care of older people and broader work on ensuring safe, effective and person-centred care.

NHS Tayside is also working to align this improvement plan with the framework for rapid self-appraisal against the new dementia care standards developed by The Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), against which all Boards will report on at the end of September.

This framework is part of CNO’s strategy to meet its new lead responsibility for reporting to the Health Secretary on assuring the care of older people in general hospital. This includes overseeing implementation of the dementia care standards in that setting.

Scottish Ambulance Services staff do not receive paid meal breaks. All staff who work under the Agenda for Change terms and conditions system work a 37.5 hour week excluding any meal or rest breaks.

Scottish Ambulance Service staff who agree to be interrupted during their unpaid breaks receive a £250 annual allowance, plus a £5 payment each time they are required to respond to an emergency whilst on a break. So far in 2011-12 some 21% of eligible staff have accepted the disturbed meal break payment. These arrangements are currently under urgent review.

Scottish Ambulance Services staff do not receive paid meal breaks. All staff who work under the Agenda for Change terms and conditions system work a 37.5 hour week excluding any meal or rest breaks. The £250 allowance paid to frontline Scottish Ambulance Service staff is an allowance for agreeing to be interrupted in an emergency during an unpaid meal break.

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Ambulance Service to maintain operational cover and ensure continuity of service delivery to patients, while at the same time ensuring the wellbeing of staff. It is recognised, however, that current arrangements for handling rest breaks in the Ambulance Service cannot remain in place and urgent discussions are ongoing to identify a suitable way forward to address what is a complex issue.

(a) Data are provided below for the total number of Accident & Emergency incidents attended by the Scottish Ambulance Service in each financial year from 2001-02 to 2010-11.

Source: Scottish Ambulance Service.

(b) Data are provided below for the total number of fires, false alarms and special service incidents that Scotland’s Fire and Rescue Services attended in each financial year from 2001-02 to 2010-11.

Sources: Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire Services for Scotland annual reports (2001-02 to 2007-08) and Fire Statistics Scotland (2008-09 and 2009-10)

1. Does not include incidents that occurred during the national industrial action in November 2002, January 2003 and February 2003.

2. This figure does not have special services included in it as there was a break in the data collection in 2008-09.

3. Revised

4. Provisional

(c) Data are provided below on the number of 999 calls the police service received in each financial year from 2001-02 to 2009-10. The 2010-11 data will be published in October 2011 in the 2010-11 Scottish Policing Performance Framework annual report.

Sources: Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland: Annual Statistical Return (2001-02 to 2006-07) and Scottish Government: Scottish Policing Performance Framework annual report (2009-10)

1. Please note that not all 999 calls received will result in an emergency call-out and there may be more than one 999 call received relating to the same incident. It is not possible to disaggregate these figures further.

2. Data for Tayside Police are not available.

3. Data for Grampian Police are not available.