Chamber and committees

Angling tourism is ofconsiderable importance to Deeside. However, it is too early to tell whetherthe low water has had any direct impact on tourism spend. The first point atwhich any impact might be determined will be next summer when survey work onthe Dee and its tributaries will identify any weaknesses in the 2004 class of juvenilefish.

Under the terms of the newUK GMS contract, by 31 December 2004 the vast majority of GP practices will be able toapply to have the responsibility for providing out of hours servicestransferred to the NHS Board. Local NHS boards will have in place alternativearrangements which will need to meet mandatory accredited standards.

Planning for this new out ofhours arrangement is underway. A national working group to look at the issuesaround out of hours across Scotland in both a rural and urban setting has been set up aspart of the implementation process. Membership of the group has been drawn froma range of staff from across the service. The group will, over the comingmonths, be looking at a range of possible alternative models and arrangementsfor providing out of hours which will be available to all NHS boards. The remitis to support local NHS systems to identify alternative schemes and promotemodels of best practice covering a range of populations from urban through toremote and rural.

There will be anunprecedented increase in funding for the new contract of 33% over three years.Practices who do opt to transfer their responsibility to NHS boards willsurrender 6% of their global sum (average £6,000 per GP) to reflect the reducedworkload and responsibility. These funds will be available to boards to meetthe costs of providing the service in another way. In addition the OOHDevelopment Fund will be increased from the existing level of £6.3 million to£10 million in 2005-2006 to help deliver the new arrangements.

The information on entrantsto first degrees and medical graduates, for the latest two years for whichinformation is available, is shown in the table.

Students from St Andrewsare included in the column for entrants, but not that for graduates. Studentsentering medicine at St Andrews spend three years studying the scientific foundationof medicine and its application to clinical problems. They then graduate with aBSc General Degree in Medical Science before continuing a three-year clinicalmedical course at Manchester University Medical School, where they gain their medical degree.

First Degree MedicalEntrants and Graduates at Scottish Higher Education Institutes

	Entrants	Graduates
2000-01	9551	810
2001-02	9572	936

Source: HESA.

1. Of which 105 are entrantsto St Andrews.

2. Of which  103 areentrants to St Andrews.

689 medical graduates joinedNHS Scotland for their Pre-Registration House Officer year in 2001, and 801 in2002. (Source: NHS Education Scotland)

Guidance to all NHSemployers on all staffing issues is promulgated to the health service in avariety of ways by the Health Department as and when this information isrequired. NHS circulars, Health Department letters (HDLs), and health weekly bulletinsare sent to all chief executives and directors of human resources pertaining toincentive packages available and instructions to finance colleagues in therecording of such incentives. Access can also be found to the entire department’sguidance for NHS employers on “Scotland’s Health on the Web” or “SHOW” websiteat http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk.

In April 2000 guidance (CCD3/2000)was issued to local authorities, NHS boards and the voluntary sector on localauthority expenditure under the Carers Strategy. The guidance stressed theimportant role of the NHS in supporting carers and advised that health boardsand trusts should agree with local authorities their complementaryresponsibilities for supporting carers. Guidance to the same bodies inSeptember 2001 (CCD7/2001) provided advice on the key steps necessary toimprove service outcomes for users and carers through joint resourcing andjoint management of community care services. The Community Care (Joint Working etc)Regulations 2002 enabled agencies to pool resources; guidance on this wasissued in December 2002 (CCD11/2002).

As I explained when I appearedbefore the Health Committee on 30 September, we have already published our 12national health priorities. Our approach is to have a limited number ofpriorities and targets, rather than overburden the service.

Service redesign underlies alot of our objectives, so it is significant in that context. Service redesignwill be relevant for cancer, mental health and for coronary heart disease andstroke. It will also be relevant for waiting times, for delayed discharge andfor 48 hour access to the primary care team. The key driver that runs thoughall our priorities is the experience of patients and the need for patients tobe more involved in service redesign.

We are aware of theinitiative and its impact on audiology services in England andunderstand that it is only appropriate at sites where the audiology service hasalready been modernised. There are currently no plans to adopt this approach inScotland but the situation will be kept under review.

We explained in the white paperA Partnership for Care, published in February 2003, that the move tosingle system working through dissolving NHS trusts is intended to createsingle NHS organisations at local level with a common set of aims and valuesand clear lines of accountability. This will help to strengthen corporateworking and provide clear strategic direction.

Under these arrangements,the employment of all NHS trust staff is transferring to the relevant NHS boardas the single NHS employer in the area. The principles set out in the NHS nationalorganisational change policy will apply.

Information about estimatedfinancial savings from dissolution of NHS trusts is not collected centrally,since the achievement of financial savings is not an objective of the policy.Nevertheless savings are already being realised in NHS board areas where singlesystem working is in place. The Executive expects these savings to bereinvested in patient care.

The recruitment andretention of blood donors is managed by the Scottish National Blood TransfusionService (SNBTS). Using an integrated strategy of advertising and publicrelations, SNBTS continually strive to encourage and recruit new blood donors.Three main publicity launches are held at key holiday periods to preventproblems with the blood supply.

The recent need to resort toan emergency appeal for the first time in four years, which resulted in 1,500new donors, was very much a last resort. The challenges faced by SNBTS inrecruiting new donors are shared by other UK blood services.

Theinformation is not held in a form which can be allocated among the 59 headings.The Executive’s 2004-05 Draft Budget was published on 11 September 2003.This provides information on the Executive’s expenditure for the current yearand the next two years. Information on expenditure for 2006-07 will be madeavailable after the 2004 spending review.

Additional expenditureannounced in the 2004-05 Draft Budget which has been allocatedspecifically to meet extra costs arising from the partnership agreement can bebroken down per portfolio as follows.

	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
	£ million	£ million	£ million
Justice	0.5	13.5	25
Transport	5	16.7	23
Education	0	29	49
Communities	0	15	15
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning	0	10	15
Health and Community Care	12	36.5	32
Tourism Culture and Sport	0	3.5	4
COPFS	0	0.43	0.65
Youth Crime/Anti-Social Behaviour	0	15	20
Totals	17.5	140	184
	Total across all years:	341

 

In addition, further moneyhas not yet been allocated to specific portfolios, since it will pay forcommitments whose costs are still under negotiation.