Chamber and committees

Providing support and advice to people that want to complain about NHS board services has always been the responsibility of NHS boards, and will continue to be. Resources to provide such support will be found from within board core allocations.

The Scottish Executive does not specifically provide support to the British Red Cross for the provision of disability equipment. The Scottish Executive provides considerable financial support to the voluntary sector in Scotland through a variety of direct and indirect grant schemes – over £400 million in 2004-05. The British Red Cross can therefore seek funding from one or more of these schemes providing the activities for which grant is sought promote Scottish Executive objectives. Each scheme has its own, specific eligibility criteria and details about them are provided in our guide for the voluntary sector to Scottish Executive grants, which can be found at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/social/gvsg-00.asp.

The Scottish Executive does not allocate specific funding to local authorities for the building or upgrading of local authority care homes. This would be a matter for individual local authorities, not all of which operate their own care homes.

The Scottish Executive continues to give substantial levels of support for capital expenditure by local authorities through interest and redemption charges, known as Loan Charge support. It is up to each local authority to decide the localpriorities for applying these resources.

The new “prudential” regime for local authority capital expenditure now allows councils to determine for themselves the total amounts they will invest in infrastructure, including care homes, over the coming years. Investment decisions by councils from 2004-05 onwards must be made in accordance with the Prudential Code to ensure they are prudent, affordable and sustainable.

Providing support and advice to people that want to complain will continue to be the responsibility of NHS boards. Each board has trained complaints officers who have a role in supporting those who wish to make a complaint. A number of other organisations are also able to provide advice and support for those seeking to complain about the NHS in their area. This includes the Citizens Advice Bureau, local advocacy agencies and patient organisations. These organisations have staff trained to give advice on a number of issues including how to make a complaint against the NHS. No formal qualification is required of these staff to carry this out.

Patients and carers should continue to complain to the NHS board. Those involved in the provision of care are best placed to investigate concerns raised and provide a response.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-14157 on 28 February 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/webapp/wa.search.

The Scottish Health Council will not provide advice and support services, but they will seek to ensure that NHS boards have appropriate and effective arrangements in place. The Scottish Health Council will also ensure that individual patients, carers and members of the public are able to make their views on health services known.

The Scottish Health Council Chair, Mr Brian Beacom, was appointed in October 2004 and six board members were appointed in December 2004.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-14157 answered on 28 February 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.

We take our responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) as an employer and service provider very seriously. Since October 2004, the DDA requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments to the physical feature of their premises if it would otherwise be unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use their services. Reasonable adjustments depend on the circumstances and needs of the individual disabled person.

The Scottish Executive has been investing in accessibility improvements in itscore buildings since 1995. £400,000 has been committed in 2004-05 to essential projects to improve access and provide auxiliary aids for disabled people across the Executive’s core estate. Further improvements in these areas are planned for 2005-06.

As a service provider, employer, and Jobcentre Plus Disability Symbol User, the Executive has, and will, continue to make all necessary reasonable adjustments for disabled people and individual members of staff, in line with its obligations under the act.