Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Executive considers all bloodborne viruses including hepatitis and HIV/AIDS to be major public health issues. Unlike hepatitis B, there is no vaccine to protect against hepatitis C.

Action on this front will reflect recommendations from the Advisory Group on Hepatitis, which provides the UK Health Departments with expert advice on the prevention and control of viral hepatitis. At present, immunisation for hepatitis B is recommended in individuals who are at increased risk because of their lifestyle, occupation or other factors, such as close contact with a case or carrier.

With reference to the Executive’s plans to address hepatitis C, I refer the member to the question S2W-13550 answered on 24 January 2005. All answers towritten 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.

The latest information available from Health Protection is as follows:

NHS Board	Reports
Argyll and Clyde	1,154
Ayrshire and Arran	920
Borders	89
Dumfries and Galloway	389
Fife	456
Forth Valley	730
Grampian	2,483
Greater Glasgow	6,484
Highland	355
Lanarkshire	1,080
Lothian	2,461
Orkney	12
Shetland	28
Tayside	1,465
Western Isles	3
Scotland	1,8109

Source: Health Protection Scotland, as at 31 December 2003.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S2W-13550 and S2W-13552, on 24 January 2005. 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.

The Executive remains committed to building the capacity of the NHSScotland workforce and is pursuing several initiatives on behalf of the health service which will enable NHS boards to improve their ability to recruit and retain consultant staff for all specialities, including radiologists. These include:

A Partnership Agreement commitment to increase the number of consultants within NHS Scotland;

An action plan to take forward a range of options and measures to improve recruitment and retention in the short and medium term;

An on-line recruitment website for NHSScotland, and

A regional consultant role which is currently being developed.

Also, to assist NHSScotland employers meet local health needs, the department has set up a national planning exercise to address these issues and the impact of staff shortages across the whole of the NHSScotland workforce.

The Executive is  aware of this important article which provides a combinedanalysis of the data from 13 case-control studies of residential radon and lungcancer in nine European countries. The results of this analysis confirmthat radon gas is an important public health hazard, the second most importantcause of lung cancer so far identified, after smoking and, in particular,estimates that radon in homes currently accounts for about 9% of deaths from lung cancer and hence 2% of all cancer deaths in Europe.

The National Radiological Protection Board will consider the implications of this study on current guidelines for radon preventative and remedial measures and give advice if necessary. A sub-group of the board’s independent advisory group on Ionising Radiation is currently conducting a review of the risks of radon exposure which will include this new study. The board will receive advice from this sub-group and will then consider, consult and issue advice on any changes that should be made to the UK scheme for controlling radon exposures.

In addition, the Executive has commissioned the board to complete its survey of radon, in housing across Scotland, at a cost of £303,000 and to update its advice on the radiological significance of levels of radon in Scotland accordingly. The survey findings will be available later in the year.

Both the existing UK housing stock and new homes are considered in measures to control the radon risk to the population in areas where radon concentrations are likely to be high. The Building Regulations require that in certain parts of the country anti-radon preventative measures must be incorporated into new houses as they are being built. Public and private initiatives have involved testing almost half a million homes in the UK with a recommendation that remedial measures areundertaken if radon levels are found to be above the action level of 200becquerels per cubic metre for radon in homes. Local authorities can assistwith grant, owners who cannot afford to meet the cost of remedial works.

This is a complex issue with set European legislative deadlines for registering and tagging calves. My aim is to find a pragmatic approach which does not jeopardise approval of our Cattle Tracing System or the credibility of our beef industry particularly in relation to export. Discussions are on-going with key interests to agree a sensible outcome as quickly as possible.

The Scottish Executive is working with local authorities to put resources and measures in place to assist in meeting this target.

The Scottish Executive has allocated funding to three capital projects of this nature to date as detailed in the following table:

Local Authority	Type of Project	Year Allocated	Amount Allocated (to end of SR2006)
Argyll and Bute Council	Composting	2001	£11,024,733
Dumfries and Galloway Council	Mechanical/Biological Treatment	2004	£12,316,000
Western Isles Council	Anaerobic Digestion	2004	£10,138,000

 

In addition, we are in discussions with a range of local authorities regarding possible Strategic Waste Fund applications which may include capital projects of this type in the future.

Data on the percentage of household waste sent to landfill by each local authority from 1999-2000 to 2001-02 are available on page 13 of the Audit Scotland report on Environmental Services available at:

 www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/pi2002/documents/report/servicespdf/EnvSer.pdf

Data on the percentage of household waste sent to landfill by each authority in 2002-03 are available on page 12 of the Audit Scotland report on Environmental Services available at:

www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/pi2003/documents/2003Report/servicespdf/EnvSer.pdf.

Audit Scotland data for 2003-04 has not yet been published. SEPA figures detailing the amount of household waste sent to landfill by each local authority in 2003-04 are available in Part D of the individual Local Authority Summary Reports at www.sepa.org.uk/nws/data/local.htm.

Figures for 2004-05 are not yet available.