Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government notes the 2014 Scottish Health Survey’s figures concerning children’s weight and diet.

We recognise the need for action and accordingly already have a broad range of actions underway including: statutory nutritional standards for food and drink in schools; the inclusion of food and health as a core topic with the Curriculum for Excellence; the extension of free school meals; the launch of Beyond the School Gate guidance for local authorities and other partners to improve food provision for young people in the vicinity of schools; the Eat Better Feel Better campaign to promote healthier eating messages with a specific focus on families from deprived areas, and the Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus which teaches practical cooking skills to children, teachers and local community groups across Scotland and the funding of child healthy weight intervention programmes.

We are also committed to support a pre-9pm ban on broadcast advertising of food high in fat, sugar and salt, to improve child public health. The Scottish Government has been clear that the advertising of unhealthy food should be restricted before the 9pm watershed, and that if the UK Government is unprepared to take this step, the power should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. We believe that this step will help to rebalance promotions of food towards healthier options such as fruit and vegetables.

Equally Well, the report of the Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities, shifted the emphasis of our approach from dealing with the consequences of health inequalities to tackling the underlying causes of poverty and employment while providing support for families to improve physical and social environments. This has been reflected in the latest Programme for Government published at the beginning of September 2015. More specifically for children the Government’s commitment is set out in our revised Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland which introduced a framework to measure progress against key outcomes.

We have also made a fundamental shift to focus on preventative spending with our Early Years Framework and the Getting it Right for Every Child approach places a strong emphasis on giving children, particularly those who are most disadvantaged, the best possible start in life to make a real difference to their future health and life chances and significant proportions of government programmes concerning healthy weight and diet are focused on our most deprived communities.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Information Services Division of National Services Scotland produce practice population size reports every quarter. These can be accessed at the following web site: http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Workforce-and-Practice-Populations/Practices-and-Their-Populations/

There has been significant increase in patient access to orphan, ultra-orphan and end of life medicines through the changed approach to individual patient treatment requests. In 2012-13 around 50 patients across Scotland accessed orphan, ultra-orphan and end of life medicines through this route. By 2014-15 this has increased tenfold to around 500 patients accessing orphan, ultra-orphan and end of life medicines through this route. The Scottish Government expects that in the future there will be reduced reliance on individual requests as the changes introduced by the Scottish Medicines Consortium are expected to deliver substantially improved access to end of life, orphan and ultra-orphan medicines for patients across Scotland. The Scottish Government does not have access to the clinical details of individual patients.

In 2014-15 NHS boards required £1 million to support the Scottish Medicines Consortium decisions and £20.5 million to support individual and group patient treatment requests from the New Medicines Fund. The funding is not required by NHS boards for this purpose in 2014-15 remains available in 2015-16 on top of the new allocation made by the Scottish Government in 2015-16.

The Scottish Government intends to take a targeted approach that recognises clinical demand in particular disease areas.

The intention of the peer approved clinical system has always been that it will operate in an environment where there is a reduced reliance on individual requests for medicines. As set out in the Task and Finish Group report presented to the Health and Sport Committee the changes introduced by the Scottish Medicines Consortium are expected to deliver substantially improved access to end of life, orphan and ultra-orphan medicines for patients across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has provided information to NHS boards on the scope of the New Medicines Fund and will continue to provide any appropriate guidance for NHS as and when necessary. The Scottish Government works with NHS boards to ensure that relevant expenditure is supported by the fund.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) developed the Patient and Clinician Engagement (PACE) process with input from stakeholders. The Scottish Government’s position remains that the views of those involved in PACE should be a determining factor in decisions made. The Scottish Government has previously stated that there will be a formal review of the new SMC approach in 2015-16 and that we are open to considering any further changes. The Scottish Government is currently working with the SMC on the remit of the review which will be shared with stakeholders prior to publication.

Yes it will together with wider considerations on how decisions impact on all patients within NHSScotland.