Chamber and committees

Civil servants assist Scottish Ministers in delivering the Government’s priorities, which were set out by the First Minister in his statement on the Programme for Government on Tuesday 5 September 2012. The commitments in the Programme for Government include a referendum on independence as well as others including better regulation, adult health and criminal justice. Civil servants provide support on all aspects of Scottish Government work, as and when required. This includes preparing briefing for ministers as one of many core tasks. The number of hours spent on each individual commitment is not separately recorded.

The Programme for Government can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Performance/programme-for-government.

<>Details of staff working in the Scottish Government’s Elections and Constitution Division, whose work includes policy on elections, legislation and electronic counting systems for local government elections, as well as the new provisions in the Scotland Act 2012 and the referendum, have already been published at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/constitution/About/constitution-SG-staffing.

The actual salary cost for the Elections and Constitution Division in 2011-12 was £441,308, less than 1% of the total salary cost for the core Scottish Government in the same year.

As part of their normal duties, civil servants provide support on all aspects of the Scottish Government’s work, as and when required, including on preparations for the independence referendum.

The information requested on how many staff shortages NHS boards have reported in remote and rural communities in each year since 1999, broken down by (a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) dentists is not held centrally.

There are 15 live traffic camera views available on the Traffic Scotland website covering the Grampian area including the A90 and the A96. Transport Scotland is currently reviewing its Intelligent Transport System strategy to look for opportunities to add further cameras and they recognise additional cameras on the A90 and A96 trunk roads would be beneficial. Live traffic cameras are available to view on the Traffic Scotland website and mobile devices. Transport Scotland is also taking steps to improve the resilience and availability of camera images as technical issues are known to affect the website for short periods of time.

Responsibility for all aspects of traffic management on the A98, including improving the availability of live traffic cameras, rests with Aberdeenshire Council and Moray Council.

The Scottish Government engages in discussions with a wide range of stakeholders about matters of importance to Scotland’s people and communities. An independent Scotland will continue to have a lottery and lottery infrastructure.

This information is not held centrally. This is a matter for NHS boards.

The average available staffed beds for dermatology in-patients by NHS Board for financial years ending 31 March 1999 to 31 March 2012 are provided in the following table(s).

NHS Board	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Ayrshire and Arran	15	15	15	15	15	15	15
Borders	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	1	1	1	2	1
Fife	7	6	6	5	5	3	3
Forth Valley	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Grampian	19	16	14	13	10	9	9
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	51	48	46	43	40	40	34
Highland	8	9	8	8	8	9	7
Lanarkshire	26	26	15	15	15	14	15
Lothian	15	13	7	8	8	9	8
Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tayside	18	18	14	13	13	13	13
Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Scotland	160	152	126	121	115	114	105

 

NHS Board	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2001-11	2011-12
Ayrshire and Arran	13	11	11	10	9	8	7
Borders	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Fife	2	1	1	-	-	-	-
Forth Valley	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Grampian	8	8	9	9	8	7	7
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	31	31	31	24	21	20	17
Highland	5	5	2	2	2	2	1
Lanarkshire	14	12	13	12	13	11	10
Lothian	8	8	9	8	8	9	7
Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tayside	12	11	12	12	12	13	12
Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Scotland	94	88	89	78	74	71	62

Source: ISD Scotland, ISD(S)1.

Information on quarterly and annual available staffed beds split by specialty and NHS board of treatment is published by Information Services Division and is available at the link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Hospital-Care/.

The information requested is not available centrally.

The Elections and Referendum Team are responsible, among other things, for preparations for the independence referendum. This team consists of seven civil servants. Where appropriate, they seek input from colleagues in other parts of the organisation.

Treatment for haemorrhoids can occur at GP surgeries, outpatient clinics and in hospital as an inpatient or day case.

There are no centrally collected figures which count the number of people consulting a GP practice or receiving treatment from the practice for haemorrhoids. However, estimates of consultations are available from a sample of general practices in Scotland taking part in the Practice Team Information (PTI) scheme in the financial years 2003-04 to 2011-12 (Table 1). Patients exclusively treated outwith primary care is not included in these figures. PTI records do not specify if treatment was offered or only advice given.

Centrally collected outpatient clinic information does not capture details of diagnoses made therefore it is not possible to show statistics on patients attending for treatment of haemorrhoids.

The numbers of patients admitted to a hospital as a day case or inpatient for treatment of haemorrhoids are shown in Table 2.

It should be noted that a patient may appear in both the GP consultation figures and the hospital admission figures. The total number of patients does not, therefore, equal the sum of the figures given in the tables. Also, people with haemorrhoids who self-medicated using over-the-counter products without consulting a GP or being admitted to hospital during the year are not included.

Table 1 – Estimated numbers of patients in Scotland consulting a GP or practice nurse¹ for haemorrhoids², with corresponding 95% confidence intervals³; for financial years 2003-04 to 2011-12⁴

Financial year (ending 31 March)	Estimated number of patients consulting in Scotland	95% Confidence Interval
2003-04	41,070	(37,650-44,500)
2004-05	41,830	(37,900-45,760)
2005-06	41,990	(38,170-45,800)
2006-07	39,100	(36,060-42,140)
2007-08	39,150	(35,780-42,510)
2008-09	44,300	(41,310-47,300)
2009-10	45,600	(42,190-49,010)
2010-11	46,130	(42,660-49,600)
2011-12	48,130	(44,290-51,970)

Source: Practice Team Information (PTI), ISD Scotland 1. Estimates of patients consulting are based on the number of people with a face-to-face contact with either a GP or a practice-employed nurse in practices participating in Practice Team Information (PTI). This sample of Scottish general practices covers the full range of age, sex, deprivation and urban/rural classes existing in Scotland. 2. To be included in PTI figures patients had at least one contact where a haemorrhoid was indicated as (one of) the reason(s) for that contact in that year. Haemorrhoids are defined by the following Read codes: G84. Haemorrhoids (including all child codes) Gyu83 [X] Internal haemorrhoids with other complications Gyu84 [X] External haemorrhoids with other complications Gyu85 [X] Unspecified haemorrhoids with other complications L416. Haemorrhoids in pregnancy and the puerperium (including all child codes) 3. As the PTI estimates are based on data from a sample of practices, 95% confidence intervals are included to indicate the accuracy of these estimates. 4. The sample included 59, 53, 51, 49, 48, 58, 60, 59 and 59 PTI practices that submitted complete GP and practice nurse data for the years ending 31 March 2003 to 2012 respectively.

Table 2 - Number of patients admitted to Scottish hospitals for treatment of haemorrhoids - Financial years ending 31 March 2000 to 2012

	NHS Health Board of Treatment	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
	NHS AYRSHIRE & ARRAN	722	696	725	740	629	841	912
	NHS BORDERS	62	52	40	39	51	46	41
	NHS DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY	145	148	104	58	89	90	137
	NHS FIFE	294	324	192	217	226	268	301
	NHS FORTH VALLEY	190	189	235	199	113	110	110
	NHS GRAMPIAN	399	465	606	728	674	655	637
	NHS GREATER GLASGOW & CLYDE	1418	1393	1460	1518	1635	1825	1931
	NHS HIGHLAND	289	229	162	186	176	199	282
	NHS LANARKSHIRE	511	477	460	464	473	525	617
	NHS LOTHIAN	565	595	474	321	365	359	405
	NHS ORKNEY	17	12	23	24	17	35	60
	NHS SHETLAND	23	26	45	36	36	56	86
	NHS TAYSIDE	429	430	277	266	258	243	265
	NHS WESTERN ISLES	30	27	29	28	30	37	27
	GOLDEN JUBILEE NATIONAL HOSPITAL				18	58	149	289
	NON-NHS PROVIDER1		1	7	7	16	17	8
	NHSScotland2	5093	5062	4835	4843	4840	5444	6093
	NHS Health Board of Treatment	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012p
	NHS AYRSHIRE & ARRAN	917	925	954	978	1087	1029
	NHS BORDERS	56	62	63	64	90	116
	NHS DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY	127	163	164	145	139	150
	NHS FIFE	285	247	168	133	119	141
	NHS FORTH VALLEY	88	93	157	119	123	135
	NHS GRAMPIAN	673	805	975	1049	855	1036
	NHS GREATER GLASGOW & CLYDE	1486	1865	2399	2288	2283	2719
	NHS HIGHLAND	321	357	335	315	221	200
	NHS LANARKSHIRE	820	693	911	988	884	786
	NHS LOTHIAN	378	375	345	410	339	342
	NHS ORKNEY	61	33	52	45	50	54
	NHS SHETLAND	49	59	43	63	67	52
	NHS TAYSIDE	245	209	253	272	276	227
	NHS WESTERN ISLES	33	35	34	22	27	45
	GOLDEN JUBILEE NATIONAL HOSPITAL	565	562	336	301	133	41
	NON-NHS PROVIDER1	3	10	41	40	39	37
	NHSScotland2	6075	6447	7188	7198	6722	7101

	Source:ISD Scotland SMR01 linked catalogue
	p - provisional

1	Non-NHS Provider figures relate to patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes etc.
2	Patients are counted once in each health board they appear. This may result in an element of double counting. Patients are counted once in the Scotland total. Thus the total may not equal the sum of health boards.