Chamber and committees

Yes, pharmacy oxygen services will continue. Community pharmacists already provide patients with oxygen in large, non-portable cylinders and we intend to make portable oxygen cylinders available on GP prescription through community pharmacists by the end of the summer.

Section 63 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 enables the extension of prescribing rights to new groups of health care professionals. As a first step towards implementing the provisions of section 63, we are introducing supplementary prescribing for appropriately trained pharmacists and nurses. Work to effect the necessary amendments to NHS regulations is in hand, and we expect the first supplementary prescribing arrangements to come into operation during the course of this year.

The Scottish Executive welcomes the work of Diabetes UK in raising the profile of diabetes through activities such as Diabetes Week. The Executive is committed to improving services for people with diabetes and has initiated a programme of work to support the delivery of the Scottish Diabetes Framework. Recent developments include the publication of the results of the Scottish Diabetes Survey 2002, the publication of a Scottish Diabetes Core Dataset, the circulation of a competency framework to support continuing professional education and the announcement of £1.5 million to support the development of Managed Clinical Networks in diabetes.

My department is already working to reduce the burden of paperwork on farmers. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department forms and guidance are regularly reviewed to ensure that unnecessary questions are deleted and remaining questions simplified; all Common Agricultural Policy subsidy forms are scrutinised by a panel of farmer and industry representatives before being finalised.The current system of sheep tagging was introduced in February 2002, following the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, with the full support of the industry in Scotland. It does not require tagging to take place until the time of the first move. The EC has since published proposals for a new system which includes tagging within one month of birth. I am committed to working towards changes to the EC proposal which are closer to our existing system in Scotland.

Provisions of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002, together with regulations made by Scottish ministers, provide the legislative basis for the delivery of free personal and nursing care. Guidance Circulars CCD4/2002 and CCD5/2002 were issued in respect of the implementation of free personal and nursing care on 9 May and 30 May respectively and there are plans to consolidate these circulars this year. The Scottish Executive and local authorities worked together to develop the guidance to ensure there was fair and consistent implementation across Scotland. Monitoring arrangements have been established to ensure this is achieved.

The Minister for Health and Community Care established the Free Personal Care Joint Implementation Group. Through this group, the Scottish Executive is working with officials from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the Association of Directors of Social Work. The group provides a forum for working constructively with local authority partners to resolve any local concerns with the implementation of free personal and nursing care. A further meeting of representatives of the group is due within the next few weeks although no date has yet been set.

Scottish Executive officials will attend the meeting between the COSLA and independent care home operators on 29 July. This will be the second in a series of meetings to consider a mutually acceptable framework for assessing the cost of providing care in homes for older people from 2005-06.

Local authorities now have a duty to offer direct payments to all eligible disabled people. This change gives people the opportunity to arrange and purchase their own community care or children's services, instead of receiving services arranged by their local authority. Direct payments can give disabled people more choice and control over the purchase of day care and home care services, respite breaks and housing support services as well as equipment and temporary adaptations. From 1 April 2004 we intend to extend the scope of direct payments beyond disabled people. This will make direct payments available to a range of people, including older people who need community care services because of frailty as well as people fleeing domestic abuse, people recovering from drug or alcohol problems, homeless people and children who require services because a parent is recovering from drug or alcohol problems.

The following table shows the allocation made to each local authority for 2003-04. Resources of £147 million and £153 million in total for 2004-05 and 2005-06 respectively were included in the recent Local Government Settlement. Funding for 2006-07 will be considered in the next spending review. The resources allocated should be sufficient to ensure that those eligible to apply for and assessed as needing personal care will receive it free of charge.

	Starting 1st April 2003(£000)
Aberdeen City	5,669
Aberdeenshire	6,684
Angus	4,667
Argyll and Bute	3,547
Clackmannanshire	871
Dumfries and Galloway	5,037
Dundee City	3,997
East Ayrshire	3,548
East Dunbartonshire	3,060
East Lothian	2,500
East Renfrewshire	2,990
Edinburgh City	16,310
Eilean Siar	589
Falkirk	2,921
Fife	10,067
Glasgow City	14,019
Highland	5,513
Inverclyde	2,577
Midlothian	1,785
Moray	2,516
North Ayrshire	4,327
North Lanarkshire	5,617
Orkney	340
Perth and Kinross	6,098
Renfrewshire	4,126
Scottish Borders	3,552
Shetland	325
South Ayrshire	4,329
South Lanarkshire	7,936
Stirling	2,926
West Dunbartonshire	2,101
West Lothian	2,455
Total	143,000

Reducing binge drinking is one of the key priorities of the Scottish Executive's Plan for Action on alcohol problems, which was launched in January 2002. The plan seeks to achieve a cultural shift in harmful drinking patterns such as those highlighted in the CMO's annual report for 2002. Action under the plan includes the launch, in April 2002, of a £1.5 million campaign featuring television, radio and billboards - with a major focus on binge drinking. The campaign is currently being reviewed following completion of its first phase and future work will take account of the need to focus more specifically on the particular risks faced by young women. Another important development was the launch on 10 June of the Executive-funded Gender Issues Network on Alcohol (GINA). In the first instance, GINA will focus primarily on women's issues, providing a vehicle for the development and dissemination of good practice in working with women, including gender-sensitive approaches to prevention.