Chamber and committees

The Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives provides a wide range of information and support for employers and employees through its website, free and confidential advice line and through its network of advisers. A growing number of employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises are accessing the centre''s services to help promote the wellbeing of their staff.

Workplace health and safety and employment legislation are issues reserved to the UK Government.

In line with the principle of participation in the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Scotland Act 2003, service uses should be fully involved so far as they are able to be in all aspects of their assessment, care, treatment and support. Decisions about the best treatment will take into account the clinical evidence, patient choice and the appropriateness of the patient for a particular treatment.

We are committed to working with NHS boards and NHS Education for Scotland to improve access to psychological therapies across Scotland. We are also developing an access target for psychological therapies for inclusion in HEAT in 2011-12.

We have established the first ever mental health waiting time target for access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) which means by March 2013 no one will wait longer than 26 weeks. We are also investing £6.5 million over three years to increase the number of psychologists working in specialist CAMHS. A further £2 million per year is available to NHS boards on a recurring basis to accelerate the development of specialist CAMHS.

We are also investing and working with NHS boards and NHS Education for Scotland to expand and improve access to evidence based psychological therapies. This includes a commitment to develop an access target for psychological therapies for inclusion in HEAT in 2011-12.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Bill will also include mental health services in its aims to establish a 12 week treatment time guarantee for patients receiving elective or planned treatment on an inpatient or day case basis. Where mental health services are delivered on this basis then the treatment time guarantee will apply.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years both in mapping out what needs to be done and in delivering the changes that will be required now and in the future to improve these vital services. This has involved work in many different areas including training and workforce planning; increasing hospital bed numbers; reducing inappropriate hospital admissions; early intervention; supported transitions; improved primary care, and better planning and delivery of specialist care.

We have established a 26 week HEAT target for access to specialist CAMHS to be achieved by March 2013; further supported the development of CAMHS specialist services by investing an additional £2 million per year on a recurring basis, and we have made available £6.5 million new money over three years from 2009-10 to develop the CAMHS psychology workforce and support additional training places and posts.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-35030 on 23 July 2010 which set out action on establishing national mental health service waiting time targets. National data on these aspects will be published as it becomes available. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Information for 2008-09 is set out in the following table:

Source LFR 3 Returns.

Note: For comparisons which span 2007-08 and 2008-09, the rolling up of the former Supporting People ring-fenced grant created a discontinuity (increase in net expenditure) as the expenditure supported by the rolled up grant was included from 2008-09.

Note: *An Approved Medical Practitioner (AMP) is a medical practitioner who has been approved under section 22 of the 2003 Act by an NHS board or the State Hospitals Board for Scotland as having special experience in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorder.

Tables 1 and 2 show the numbers of patients aged over 16, with a BMI of 30 or over, included on QOF obesity registers for Scotland and in each NHS Board, for the financial years 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Table 1 Numbers of Patients Aged 16 and Over Included on General Practice QOF Registers for Obesity, 2007-08

Table 2. Numbers of Patients Aged 16 and Over Included on General Practice QOF Registers for Obesity, 2008-09

Source: Information Services Division Scotland.

Notes:

1. QOF registers can potentially include a mixture of patients who are defined as obese and morbidly obese, but as the QOF reports only the total numbers of patients on the obesity register in each practice the figures can not be broken down to count each group separately.

2. QOF obesity registers can include patients newly recorded as being obese and those previously recorded as being obese, so the numbers for the two years are also likely to include many of the same patients.

3. The QOF-reported prevalence of obesity, at around 7% for Scotland, is much lower than the rates reported in population surveys (for example the 2008 Scottish Health Survey reported that 26% of men and 27.5% of women aged over 16 years were obese).

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicators/childrensBMI (the national indicator relates to children aged 2-15).

Progress is being made to reduce the rate of increase in the proportion of children with a body mass index outwith a healthy range with figures showing a drop from 1.7% per annum between 1998 and 2003 to 0.8% per annum between 2003 and 2008.

A draft report on Applied Psychology and Psychology in the NHS in Scotland was circulated to Boards in December and discussed with NHS Chief Executives in April. The report identified key challenges and opportunities in the provision of psychology services for older people. The report''s working group will reconvene shortly to produce a final version of the report.

National Standards and the Crisis Toolkit have been published in recent years, and implementation of the Standards is monitored as part of the Scottish Government''s performance management of Boards. In addition, the Mental Health Benchmarking Project includes action on developing the collection of data on the availability of crisis services, which will enable Boards and others to compare and measure service provision.