Chamber and committees

Local research in Glasgow in 1999 suggested that injecting drug users in the city committed 26 crimes per month, compared to four per month when prescribed methadone and when ceased injecting. Findings in 2005 from the much larger National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) in England and Wales showed that, for drug misusers who sought treatment voluntarily, there were substantial reductions both in the number of crimes committed and the percentage of clients engaged in crime. Similar reductions were found among clients from methadone and from residential programmes.

Reports on NTORS can be found at http://www.dh.gov.uk/Publications.

This information is contained in Appendix 1, table A6 of the Scottish Dental Practice Board Annual Report 2004/05.

This can be found at:

http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/sdpb/Annual%20Report%20and%20Executive%20Summaries/SDPB_annual_report_2004-05.pdf.

Free NHS dental checks will be introduced from 1 April 2006.

Provision of paraphernalia such as clean pipes for users of crack cocaine would require amendment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. No such amendment is planned at present.

In 1990, prevalence of hepatitis C among injecting drug users from Lothian and Glasgow aged under 25 was around 70-90%; these injectors would have commenced their injecting prior to the introduction of harm reduction interventions. By the mid-1990s, rates among under 25 year old injecting drug users had decreased to 20-40%. This rate has remained generally constant to 2002. In 1985, the number of new hepatitis B virus diagnoses in injecting drug users was 157, compared to 38 in 2002.

The prevalence of HIV was 0.5% among 2,115 injecting drug users during 2004; this rate compares with prevalence of 1.4% to 3.2% in the early to mid-1990s and 0.5% to 0.8% during the period 1998 to 2003.

It is impossible to separate the different strands of the harm reduction intervention programme, such as needle/syringe exchange and methadone maintenance therapy, in terms of specific effectiveness.

Further information can be obtained from the Health Protection Scotland website at http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/scieh.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-23124 on 8 March 2006. 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/webapp/wa.search.

This information is not held centrally.

The overall responsibilityfor provision of NHS dental services rests with NHS boards, whom we encourageto maintain lists of patients who wish to have access to NHS dental services.

Experience suggests thatdentists moving to private practice will retain some element of NHS work,mainly registration and treatment of children and other patients exempt fromcharges, which attracts some NHS funding and allowances.

We are aware thatinformation on private dental plans has been offered to dentists, and that privatedental plan providers routinely advertise in the professional journals. Relevantexamples are contained in the September to October 2005, Issue 76 of the ScottishDentist which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre(Bib. number 39044).