Chamber and committees

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 final report on the Access to Laurencekirk study commissioned by Nestrans was recently sent to Transport Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council for consideration. Discussions are now underway with our partners on the next steps for this project, including matters around funding.

Further detailed design development work and authorisation are likely to take some years and progress will be reported as that process continues.

In light of this, it is not possible at this stage to confirm when work will start on the new flyover at Laurencekirk.

The information requested is shown in the following table:

NHS territorial board	2015-16 Investment in motor neurone disease as at 11.8.15 (£)	2015-16 Investment in specialist nursing and care (£)
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	0	119,304
NHS Borders	0	72,970
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	0	80,576
NHS Fife	0	113,491
NHS Forth Valley	0	102,088
NHS Grampian	122,390	140,175
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	216,648	249,071
NHS Highland	48,066	111,020
NHS territorial board	2015-16 Investment in motor neurone disease as at 11.8.15 (£)	2015-16 Investment in specialist nursing and care (£)
NHS Lanarkshire	0	162,893
NHS Lothian	146,426	180,389
NHS Orkney	0	31,551
NHS Shetland	0	31,511
NHS Tayside	84,216	121,671
NHS Western Isles	0	33,288
Sub Totals	617,746	1,550,000
Leuchie House	0	250,000
Total	617,746	1,800,000

Funding to double the number of motor neurone disease (MND) clinical specialists and pay them centrally has been allocated to those NHS boards who currently employ MND clinical specialists and who have links with specialist neurological centres. NHS boards that have received direct funding have been asked to work collaboratively with those boards who have not received direct funding. Funding to special boards that have patient facing services is still to be agreed. We expect that once agreement has been reached, both funds will be fully utilised. Funding allocated to Leuchie House is to support specialist nursing and care for those people affected by long term physical disability.

As part of the review of specialist nursing services, NHS territorial boards have been asked to work with third sector, social care partners and people with motor neurone disease and other specialist conditions in designing and delivering specialist nursing services. The Scottish Government’s role is to support NHS boards to engage with these organisations and a specific offer of facilitation and support has been made. In addition, the Scottish Government will seek to engage with relevant third sector organisations on wider aspects of the review of specialist nursing.

Transport Scotland’s Smart and Integrated Ticketing strategy was launched in 2012 and its long term vision statement is: “That all journeys on Scotland’s bus, rail, ferry, subway and tram networks can be accessed using some form of smart ticketing or payment”.

We have set out smart ticketing targets in the new ScotRail franchise which commenced on 1 April 2015. These include clear contractual targets for delivery of smart ticketing on Scotland’s rail network. Abellio ScotRail has committed to achieving 60% uptake for the majority of ticket types and a 65% uptake for all ticket types, by 2019 and 2021 respectively.

Smart ticketing will also feature in the new Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract tenders (October 2016) and the Northern Isles Ferry Services contract tenders (April 2018) and will be passenger focussed.

There is also strong engagement with the bus industry and Transport Scotland is both supporting large operators like First and Stagecoach in delivering their commercial objectives and directly assisting smaller bus operators in developing and delivering smart and integrated ticketing.

Finally, we are ensuring that the infrastructure platform necessary to deliver smart ticketing is fit for purpose, and are investing wherever necessary in this aspect of delivery, particularly on bus where 40% of journeys are already smart by virtue of the government’s concessionary travel scheme.

The review of specialist nursing will be completed by spring 2016 and will be published by summer 2016. The recommendations from the review will be considered by the Scottish Government’s transforming nursing roles group.

As part of the specialist nursing and care funding arrangements, NHS territorial boards have been asked to report regularly on how funds have been invested. In addition, NHS territorial board have also been asked to increase the number of clinical specialists which will result in improved access for patients.

NHS territorial boards are expected to deliver the following outcomes from the Scottish Government’s £2.5 million investment in specialist nursing and care from 1 April 2015:

Motor neurone disease clinical specialists to be paid centrally and their number doubled by 31 October 2015.

Territorial NHS boards to employ at least one additional clinical specialist by 31 December 2015.

NHS island boards to employ at least 0.5 whole time equivalent clinical specialist by 31 December 2015.

Evidence of improved access to specialist nursing services.

The Chief Nursing Officer for Scotland wrote to NHS board territorial directors of nursing on 7 May 2015 to request that they work collaboratively with third sector, social care partners and people with motor neurone disease and other specialist conditions in designing and delivering services for people affected by specialist conditions.