Chamber and committees

This information is not held centrally.

Information on expenditure on all publicly funded publications beyond those published by the Scottish Government is not held centrally. The Scottish Government Health Directorates spent £113,968 on published documents in  2007-08, £270,642 in 2008-09, and £132,773 in 2009-10. These are public-facing health documents that have been published either in hard copy or electronically and includes production and publishing costs.

The number of deaths for which the underlying cause was a malignant melanoma of skin are published each year by General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). The figures requested for 1999 to 2008, are given in Vital Events Reference Table 6.1: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/publications-and-data/vital-events/vital-events-reference-tables-2008/section-6-deaths-causes.html.

These figures are summarised in the following table:

Table 1. Deaths from Malignant Melanoma of the Skin in Scotland 1999-2008.

Year	Deaths
1999	127
2000	115
2001	145
2002	132
2003	146
2004	151
2005	158
2006	158
2007	164
2008	171

Source General Register Office for Scotland. Melanoma of the skin; code C43 in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision (ICD10).

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-29061 on 1 December 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The average response times for 2009-10 are set out in the following table.

NHS Board Area	2009-10
	Cat A	All
Argyll and Clyde	6.4	7.6
Ayrshire and Arran	6.8	8
Borders	8.6	9.7
Dumfries and Galloway	8.1	9.1
Fife	6.6	7.5
Forth Valley	7	8.5
Grampian	6.8	8
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	6.8	8.9
Highland	8.2	9.3
Lanarkshire	7	8.2
Lothian	6.8	8.5
Orkney	N/A	11.5
Shetland	N/A	13.1
Tayside	6.8	7.8
Western Isles	N/A	9.8
Scotland	6.9	8.4

Notes:

*Information provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

**SAS systems record data under the previous structure of 15 geographic health boards.

***All emergency is defined as Category A, B and C calls.

****The Scottish Ambulance Service completed the roll-out of the priority-based dispatch system across mainland Scotland in March 2004, so 2004-05 is the first year in which average Category A and all emergency responses can be measured across Scotland. Figures for earlier years are not available as the information held is not comparable. Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles are subject to different performance management measures so figures are provided at an all emergency level.

No such assessment has been made.

In response to an independent stock taking review of Respect and Responsibility in 2007, sexual health outcomes and actions for 2008-11 were developed. These covered four themes - knowledge and awareness; leadership, co-ordination and performance management; standards and service provision, and young people.

We will be working with stakeholders over the coming months to determine the future direction of sexual health strategy beyond March 2011. This process has already begun with a meeting in Edinburgh on 27 May 2010 with stakeholders from a number of disciplines from across Scotland.

The exact number of consultations in Scotland for the removal of contraceptives within a specified time period is not available centrally. However, national estimates can be given of the number of consultations by either a GP or practice-employed nurse for the removal of contraceptives based on information obtained from a sample of Scottish general practices participating in PTI (Practice Team Information). The patients registered to PTI practices are representative of Scotland as a whole in terms of their age, gender and deprivation profile. The last year for which PTI data are currently available is the year ending 31 March 2009. It is not possible to determine from this data the period of time after which the contraceptive was removed.

The estimated number of consultations for the removal of a contraceptive by a GP or practice-employed nurse in Scotland in the year ending 31 March 2009, by contraceptive type, based on PTI data, is shown in table 1. Estimates are standardised by age and deprivation. However, these data exclude other settings where devices are removed, such as family planning clinics.

Table 1: Consultations in Scotland with a GP or Practice Nurse for the removal of: (a) Implantable contraceptives (implant); (b) Intrauterine devices (IUD); (c) Intrauterine systems. Estimated numbers with corresponding rates per 1,000 female patient population financial year 2008-09:

Contraceptive	Number of Consultations Number	Consultations per 1,000 Female Patient Population Rate
Implantable contraceptives (implant)	3,867	1.4
Intrauterine devices (IUD)	5,530	2
Intrauterine systems	1,652	0.6

Source: Information Services Division Scotland.

The information on figures for the primary method of contraception used by women in each NHS board, broken down by (a) age and (b) primary method is not centrally available. Data from the 2008 Scottish Health Survey (Table W26) shows some of the methods of contraception used by women in Scotland, by age group:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/scottish-health-survey/Supplementary2008

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/scottish-health-survey/Web2008Excel.

(a) The NaSH system has been live since March 2008 and has been rolled out in NHS boards since then. There are 10 health boards with NaSH, covering 93.76% of the population. Discussions are underway with Highland to agree dates for implementation. Western Isles and Shetland will have limited use of the system in a clinical setting, using it only for a small number of central clinics. Orkney has decided not to implement NaSH as all their services are provided by GPs, who will use a GP system to cover sexual health.

(b) NaSH has been designed to be used by all specialist sexual health services in Scotland, both GUM and sexual and reproductive health clinics.

(c) NaSH maintains a patient index accessible only to NaSH users and there is no mandatory national minimum data set allocated, apart from that mandated for the existing Sexually Transmitted Infections Surveillance System (STISS) coding, which remains anonymous. The system allows information to be captured in the following areas “ sexual history, blood borne virus risk factors, sexually transmitted infection screening, emergency contraception details, gynaecology, examination, sexual partner notification, men''s health, child protection issues and competency, attendance details and chaperone.

The information requested is not available centrally.