- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will attract and develop biomedical research.
Answer
The Scottish Executive, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and the Enterprise Networks have a wide variety of programmes for the purpose of attracting and developing research by universities and businesses. Biomedical research benefits from substantial funding from all these bodies. Very significant additional resources have been provided in this year’s Spending Review in order to maintain the competitiveness of our university research base.
An example of a joint Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning and Health Department project is the £4 million funding of research into the causes of genetic diseases. The Genetics and Healthcare Initiative (GHI) seeks to build on Scotland's existing academic, clinical and biotechnological strengths in this field.
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what funding it offers to PhD students engaged in medical research and how many such students it has funded in each of the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Executive Health Department, Chief Scientist Office, offers Health Services Research Postgraduate Studentship and Training Fellowships.
Details of the awards are contained in the Chief Scientist Office annual reports which are available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 11175, 27122, 27123, 34365 and 34366).
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many temporary agency nursing staff there have been in the NHS since 1995, broken down by NHS board, and what the total annual cost was to the NHS.
Answer
Information relating to agency nursing staff is available on table E12 and E13 of the ISD website
www.isdscotland.org. Note: information on agency usage is only available from 1999. Information on agency costs is only available from 2001.
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the reasons are for the variations in costs for operations in hospitals, as reported in Scottish Health Service Costs (NHS Cost Book 2004) and what the reasons are for the increase in costs since 1999.
Answer
The Scottish health service cost book reports average specialty costs, it does not report on the costs of procedures/operations.
There are a number of reasons for variations in average specialty costs across NHS Scotland, primarily relating to differences casemix complexity between hospitals.
With respect to the increase in costs since 1999, there are several factors, namely:
Improvements in the quality of service delivery within the NHS;
The changing nature of service delivery has resulted in less complicated procedures being transferred to other settings (e.g. outpatient clinics). As a result, there is an increasing trend for inpatient treatments to be more resource intensive than in previous years. This is reflected in higher average speciality costs over time, and
Staff costs have also increased. This is attributable to changes in working practices (e.g. reductions to junior doctors hours) coupled with rises in the number of frontline NHS staff.
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will promote the role of biomedical research.
Answer
The Scottish Executive’s A Science Strategy for Scotland, published in August 2001, and the Scottish Science Advisory Committee’s report “Science Matters” published in January 2004, both indicated that bioscience and medical research are two of Scotland’s priority areas for science, and will be of key strategic value in developing the economy and enhancing quality of life. The Executive will continue to emphasise the value it places on these areas whenever it is appropriate to do so.
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to increase the budget of the Chief Scientist Office.
Answer
As announced in the Draft Budget 2005-06, the research budget has increased by 3.4% to £15.114 million for 2005-06. Support funding provided to NHS boards for research will also increase by 6.1% to £37.504 million.
- 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 17 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what direction it gives to the Chief Scientist Office regarding investment in research.
Answer
The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) is part of the Scottish Executive Health Department and has responsibility for encouraging and supporting research into health and health care needs in Scotland. The CSO’s current Research Strategy, which outlines the priority areas for the five years to 2008, was the subject of wide consultation and was published with ministerial approval in August 2003. The document is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 29075).
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 August 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Rhona Brankin on 16 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive when it will review the NHS dental contract.
Answer
The Executive recently concluded a major consultation, Modernising NHS Dental Services in Scotland, which included how NHS dental services should be provided and remunerated in the future. Responses to this consultation have now been analysed and we expect to issue a policy statement in the autumn.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 August 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Rhona Brankin on 16 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what smoking cessation schemes for schoolchildren have been introduced in each education authority area and what participation in such schemes has been recorded.
Answer
The Executive has funded NHS Health Scotland to run eight pilot smoking cessation initiatives aimed specifically at young people (11 to 24-year-olds) in order to develop and evaluate best practice in this area. These pilots are being run in Shetland Islands, Western Isles, Moray,
Angus, Falkirk, West Lothian,Greater Glasgow and Argyll and Clyde and will run from April 2002 until summer 2005. A final report will be completed in 2006.
Information on any cessation services introduced by individual education authorities is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Mr David Davidson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 August 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Rhona Brankin on 16 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take to ensure that there is a seamless development of services delivering community equipment and adaptations and whether it will amalgamate the management and budget of these services in a single body within each NHS board area.
Answer
We already promote better integration of all community care services, including community equipment and adaptations, as part of the Joint Future agenda. The Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 enables local authority and NHS partnerships to go further by delegating functions and pooling budgets.
