Chamber and committees

Guidance regarding the Health Plan Indicator (HPI) was contained in A New Look at Hall 4, The Early Years, Good Health for Every Child, launched on 18 January 2011.

The criteria for allocation of the HPI should be based on the assessed need of the individual child and family.

The Health Plan Indicator should continue to be recorded on the Child Health Surveillance Programme “ Pre-school (CHSP-PS) system. Work is ongoing to ensure this system supports practitioners in light of the changes.

The HPI should relate to the assessed needs of the child and family. The guidance makes clear the need for flexibility in the allocation of the HPI as well as the need to revisit the assessment as child and/or family circumstances change.

As a minimum, the 24 to 30 month review should cover: speech, language and communication; personal, social and emotional development (including behavioural issues); nutrition, growth and weight; immunisations; parental concerns and issues; vision, hearing and oral health, and physical activity and play.

The review may be expanded, depending on child and family circumstances, and professional concerns.

The review needs to be flexible to meet the needs of the child and family. Although it is anticipated that a registered Public Health Nurse “ Health Visitor will lead the review process, it is for NHS boards to decide locally how the reviews can be carried out most effectively depending on the individual child and family circumstances, and who the most appropriate health professional is to carry out that review.

Taking forward the recommendations in the GRIPS (Getting Relevant Information on Pain Services) report forms the basis of the work of the steering group on chronic pain, which we have set up with NHS Quality Improvement Scotland and which is chaired by our lead clinician for chronic pain.

The lead clinician currently reports to the Scottish Government Health Directorates'' Long Term Conditions Programme Board on progress relating to the chronic pain action in our Long Term Conditions Action Plan.

This information is not held centrally.

This information is not held centrally.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) has however asked each NHS board to provide information about its pain management services for inclusion on the chronic pain community website that will be launched at the inaugural event of the Scottish Pain Research Community on 31 March 2011.

The number of people referred to pain management programmes outside Scotland, during the period 1 April 2010 to 4 February 2011, and the cost to each NHS board, are given in the following table:

NHS Board	Number Referred	Cost
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	3	£50,591
NHS Fife	1	£9,627
NHS Forth Valley	2	£16,472
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	2	£16,471
NHS Grampian	8	£89,875
NHS Highland	2	£13,850
NHS Lanarkshire	1	£9,547
NHS Tayside	6	£55,146

Source:  National Services Division, NHS National Services Scotland.

Information on vacancies for consultant psychologists posts in each NHS board is available from the Information Services Division website under workforce information at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5899.html.

Information for 2010 on the number of psychologists employed in NHSScotland is published on the NHS National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5381.html.

Previous years can be found at: http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5759.html.

Table 6 in publications 2007-10 details all applied psychologists in NHSScotland by area of work.

Highland Council is responsible for the delivery of education in its area. The employment and deployment of their staff in the delivery of that duty is a matter for the local authority. I understand that following the council meeting on 10 February 2011 Highland Council has agreed to set up a cross party group to review the level of assistance provided in primary school classrooms.