- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many board places were lost when NHS trusts were incorporated into NHS boards, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
The following table sets out the membership before and after the transition to single system working on 1 April 2004. The rationale behind the dissolution of NHS trusts and the introduction of single system NHS boards was that there were too many separate statutory NHSScotland organisations planning and providing health services. It was therefore intended that this reduction in the numbers of health bodies would lead to more streamlined operations and better use of resources rather than a significant decrease in the numbers of non-executiveboard members.
| Before 1 April 2004 | From 1 April 2004 |
| Board | * Number of NHS Board Members (including Trust Chairs) | Number of Trust Members+ | Total Number of NHS Board and NHS Trust Members+ | Number of NHS Board Members | Positions Lost |
| Argyll and Clyde | 14 (3) | 6 | 20 | 17 | 3 |
| Ayrshire and Arran | 11 (2) | 4 | 15 | 15 | 0 |
| Borders# | 9 (2) | 4 | 13 | 11 | 2 |
| Dumfries and Galloway# | 9 (2) | 4 | 13 | 10 | 3 |
| Fife | 9 (2) | 4 | 13 | 13 | 0 |
| Forth Valley | 11 (2) | 4 | 15 | 13 | 2 |
| Grampian | 12 (2) | 4 | 16 | 15 | 1 |
| Greater Glasgow | 16 (4) | 8 | 24 | 22 | 2 |
| Highland | 9 (2) | 4 | 13 | 13 | 0 |
| Lanarkshire | 10 (2) | 4 | 14 | 13 | 1 |
| Lothian | 14 (3) | 6 | 20 | 20 | 0 |
| Tayside | 12 (2) | 4 | 16 | 16 | 0 |
Notes:
*This number includes each Trust Chair (in brackets) who sat on the board as an ex-officio member.
+Excluding Trust Chairs who have already been included in the overall number as part of the Board Membership (column 2).
#Both Borders and Dumfries and Galloway NHS boards moved to single-system with effect from 1 April 2003.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to reduce further the number of health based non-departmental public bodies.
Answer
The numbers of health based public bodies are routinely checked to determine their continuous relevance and effectiveness. The efficient government criteria set out in the publication Building a Better Scotland provides the catalyst for these on-going checks.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list the savings expected in health care following the publication of Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government — Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity.
Answer
The information requested is given on page 25 of Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government – Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity published by the Scottish Executive in 2004 a copy of which is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34543).
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to support NHS boards in providing in-service continuing professional development for all clinical staff.
Answer
Partnership for Care sets out our commitment to develop an entitlement toContinual Professional Development (CPD) for all staff.
NHS boards also need to work in partnership with staff to ensure that they are supported and encouraged to develop and maintain their skills. In 2002-03 and 2003-04, as part of the Facing the Future initiative, the Scottish Executive allocated £1.75 million to NHS boards to be used in addition to existing CPD funding. So far in 2004-05, £1 million has been released to NHS boards for additional CPD.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has carried out any evaluation of the product, Envirocare, regarding its effectiveness in combating MRSA infections in hospitals and medical premises.
Answer
Combating health care associated infection (HAI) including MRSA is a major priority for the Executive and the NHS and I am keen to encourage any development in that area.
Many products are offered as being of value in the control of infection and many are in use.
However, the most effective action is hand washing and good cleaning practices to which the National Cleaning Specification applies.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive Scottish Executive under what circumstances treatment would be judged as being of a (a) low clinical priority and (b) highly specialised nature, as referred to in Availability Status Codes 3 and 4 of Managing Waiting Times: A Good Practice Guide.
Answer
National guidance on the use of Availability Status Codes (formerly Guarantee Exception Codes) has been in place since their introduction in 1992. Decisions on the application of Availability Status Codes rest with NHS boards and the use of particular designations is at their discretion.
The designation of Availability Status Code 3 (low clinical priority) is a matter of clinical assessment. Patients given an Availability Status Code 3 will typically include those awaiting tattoo removal, reverse vasectomy and cosmetic surgery. The use of Availability Status Code 4 (highly specialised treatment) in practice would tend to mean that only a very small number of specialists in the country are able to carry out the particular procedure. Examples may include hipresurfacing and certain types of back surgery.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 26 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what assistance it offers to universities to carry out biomedical research.
Answer
The Scottish Higher EducationFunding Council and the UK Research Councils are responsible for the allocationof resources to universities for research.
I also refer the member to the answer to S2W-11993 answered on
17 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 11 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 25 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how the increase in funds allocated to “national priorities including waiting times”, as referred to in Draft Budget 2005-06 will be spent
Answer
In the coming weeks I will announce full details of the new plans and targets that are made possible by the increases in investment in the health and community care budget, including improvements to waiting times, the speeding up of diagnostic services and the bringing of quality health care to those who need it.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 11 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how the increase in funds allocated to “information technology” in the Health and Community Care section of Draft Budget 2005-06 will be spent.
Answer
In the coming weeks I will announce full details of the new plans and targets that are made possible by the increases in investment in the health and community care budget, including an increase in funds allocated to “information technology”.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 22 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the ratio is between the number of whole-time-equivalent infection control doctors and the total number of beds, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
No doctors are employed solely as infection control doctors. Many doctors have infection control as a component of their job plan. Each NHS board, with the exception of NHS Orkney (which is in the process of making appropriate arrangements), has identified and has in post a doctor with overall responsibility for infection control. All boards have a number of doctors who are involved in infection control.
