Chamber and committees

Scottish Water isresponsible for sewers which are part of the public sewerage network. TheSewerage (Scotland) Act 1968 makes provisions relating to sewerage in Scotland- section 16 of the act covers ownership of sewers. Scottish Watermaintains records of the public sewerage system and would be happy to field anyenquiries if you approach them with details of the location of the particularsewer(s) under question.

This is a matter for NHSScotlandBodies. The information requested is not held centrally.

In recognition of the needto ensure NHSScotland Bodies comply with the ScottishExecutive’s principles and policies on sustainable development, the ScottishExecutive Health Department’s recently revised Environmental ManagementPolicy for NHSScotlandNHSHDL(2006)21requires NHSScotland Bodies to set year-on-year targets for increasing theamounts of waste designated for re-use, recycling or recovery. These targetsare required to be set by individual boards, in accordance with EU, UK andScottish Executive legislation, to contribute to the Executive’s National WastePlan which aims to achieve a national target of 25% recycling and composting ofmunicipal waste by 2006 and 55% by 2020.

Operational guidance on themanagement and disposal of clinical and domestic waste is provided to NHSScotlandby Health Facilities Scotland.

NHSScotland has long beenrecognised as a leader in the field on environmental management which has beenwidely recognised elsewhere in the UK and more recently by the European Health PropertyNetwork.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-25864 on 19 May 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Scottish Executive iscommitted to maintaining and enhancing the quality of medical training and thiswill not be affected by the Home Office’s work permit regulations that cameinto effect on 3 April 2006. The Executive will monitor the impact of thechanges to Home Office work permit regulations on training posts.

The funding of recyclinginitiatives is a matter of local NHS board policy and no central monitoring isundertaken on the way in which funds are allocated.

In Scotland, MMCimplementation is being led by NHS Education for Scotland. NES have set aside£4.5 million in 2006-07; £5.7 million in 2007-08 and £5.7 million in 2008-09for this work. There is no comparable national educational organisation within England withwhich to make comparisons on amounts spent, and Deanery administrativestructures are very different to those in Scotland. Comprehensive data on amounts spent in England isnot currently available as allocations to strategic health authorities (SHAs)in England for 2006-07 have not yet been announced.

Data on how much waste was producedby NHSScotland over the last 10 years by NHS board is not available. However,the annual NHSScotland Environment Report has, since 1996-97, provided monitored data on volumesof clinical waste at a national level and, since 2001-02, both domestic and clinicalwaste at national level and also broken down by care groups.

The annual Environment Reportsare available online at http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/pef.

The monitoring of domestic wasteis difficult as not all healthcare bodies are provided with the necessary data bythe waste contractor and therefore the data on domestic waste streams within thereports are based in part on estimated values.

The national figures availablefor the last nine years are:

Reporting Year	Clinical	Domestic
1996-97	>16,277 tonnes	Unknown
1997-98	15,016 tonnes	>1,142,567 tonnes
1998-99	15,480 tonnes	Unknown
1999-2000	15,091 tonnes	Unknown
2000-01	14,321 tonnes	Unknown
2001-02	15,118 tonnes	>19,000 tonnes
2002-03	15,500 tonnes	31,091 tonnes
2003-04	14,784 tonnes	28,481 tonnes
2004-05	14,642 tonnes	28,562 tonnes

 

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-25864 on 19 May 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-25864 answered on 19 May 2006. All answers towritten parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, thesearch facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.