The Condition Core Fact document provides guidance to local authorities on the assessment and reporting of the condition ratings of their schools to ensure there is consistency between authorities in the data which is collected by the Scottish Government for the annual school estate statistics publication. The document does not prescribe any actions for either the Scottish Government or authorities if a school is reported as having any particular condition rating.

The following table shows the number of emergency admissions of over-65s for the last five available years:

Further information is available from the ISD Scotland website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Hospital-Care/Inpatient-and-Day-Case-Activity/.

NHS Scotland: Number of Emergency Admissions for Patients Aged 65+

Source: ISD SMR01.

Note: All figures rounded to nearest 1,000.

Performance against HEAT targets is reported through the NHSScotland pages of the Scotland Performs website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/partnerstories/NHSScotlandperformance.

Scotland Performs presents information on progress against each target by the year they are due for delivery, rather than the year they were set. Figures are provided on HEAT targets due for delivery from 2007-08 onwards.

Changes were made to three of the 2008-09 HEAT targets following their publication.

The target to reduce the proportion of older people (aged 65+) who are admitted as an emergency inpatient was withdrawn following advice received at a Scottish Government/NHS conference in 2008 that the underlying policy aim (to reduce unnecessary hospital admission) was best achieved if the target focused on the reduction of bed days.

The other two targets on Quality Improvement Scotland (now Healthcare Improvement Scotland) clinical governance/risk management standards and improving the quality of healthcare experience were superseded by work to support the NHS to improve the quality of healthcare.

Details of HEAT targets for the years following 2008-09 can be found on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/NHS-Scotland/17273/targets.

A range of enhanced opportunities for local people to express their views on planning matters have already been delivered through planning reform.

The Scottish Government is also proactively seeking to further improve the consenting system and promote best practice, in particular by instigating and leading the European GP Wind Project. This EU-funded project identifies good practice in reconciling objectives on renewable energy with wider environmental objectives and in the active involvement of communities in planning and implementation.

The fact that Scotland is leading GP Wind speaks volumes for how we are viewed by our European neighbours, but also demonstrates our commitment to improvement, including around community engagement and consultation. By bringing together developers, regional and local government, environmental agencies and non-governmental organisations to share experiences, the project is developing a guide to good practice and a “how to” toolkit which the Scottish Government can use to further improve our practices.

The latest available information for sickness absence across NHSScotland is given in the following table. As can be seen, the rate of sickness absence has fallen from a high of 5.55% in 2007 to 4.75% in 2010 and this represents over 1 million more hours being available to NHSScotland.

These figures represent the hours lost to sickness absence as a percentage of the total available hours.

The absence rate for year ending 31 March 2011 will be published on 28 June 2011.

Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data is collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the “Background” section of the Workforce Statistics website at:

www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

The central principle of the Reshaping Care for Older People programme is the Scottish Government’s objective to provide care and support for older people, as far as possible, within the community or another homely setting. This objective includes reducing the number of days that people over 75 years of age spend in hospital following emergency admission, as well as reducing unplanned admissions to hospital and improving anticipatory and preventative care.

The Change Fund for Older People’s Services (£70 million for Scotland in 2011-12) is being used by local partnerships (NHS boards, local authorities, third and independent sectors) as bridging finance to help bring about this change more quickly and effectively. The Scottish Government is supporting local partnerships, via the Joint improvement Team and Quality and Efficiency Support Team, as they develop and implement a range of actions to:

improve the health and wellbeing of older people at home;

support people who need additional support to remain at home, along with their carers;

ensure that decisions made at points of transition, including when an emergency admission to hospital is being considered, take account of all appropriate options, and

assure the quality of care and support at the time of discharge and beyond.

Taking action across the spectrum of activity and support in this way provides a sustainable approach to reducing emergency admissions and the length of stays in hospital associated with such admissions. Progress will be measured via the NHS HEAT system, and reported on Scotland Performs.

More broadly, integration of health and social care is a priority for the Scottish Government in this term, and work will be taken forward in the coming months to develop proposals that will improve support for older people in particular.

The following table provides information on the number of people aged 65 and over who received care at home services provided or purchased by local authorities in each of the last five years. Care at home includes both personal and non-personal care services.

The Obesity Treatment Subgroup of the National Planning Forum (NPF) is reviewing the evidence on clinical pathways and will provide options to the NPF to facilitate agreement on pan Scotland approaches to enable equitable access to weight management interventions.

The main recommendations in the report are directed specifically to the NHS board concerned and we have asked that board to take immediate action to implement all of the report’s recommendations directed to it.

All NHS boards have responsibility for ensuring appropriate care pathways when transferring patients from mental health wards to general acute wards.

Improving service response in general hospitals is a key improvement area in Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy and the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy has asked the Chief Nursing Officer to oversee implementation of the national dementia standards in general hospital settings and to give assurance that care for older people in these settings, whether or not they have dementia, is meeting the highest standards of care and compassion.

Implementation of the new dementia care standards together with accelerated implementation of the dementia integrated care pathway standards and the new dementia skills and knowledge framework for health and social services staff will be key to ensuring that care pathways are improved across and within all care settings, including general hospitals.