Chamber and committees

A Stronger Scotland: The Government’s Programme for Scotland 2015-16 referred to 10 primary and community care test sites which will be used to inform primary care service reform. The following practices within these test sites are 17C practices:

Grampian – Banchory (Aberdeenshire) and Maryhill (Moray)

Lothian – Milton and Portobello Surgeries (Edinburgh).

High quality, safe and sustainable patient care remains our absolute priority and NHS boards use a variety of resources to determine what number and blend of staff each specialty and location requires to ensure this.

NHS boards collect and use intelligence around demand, capacity trends, patient acuity and other factors. We expect NHS boards to include this intelligence to help them project their needs forward, inform and develop their local delivery plans and workforce plans, and combine it as appropriate with the nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools we have mandated them to use.

This information is not held centrally. The Scottish Government provides funding for arrest referrals to the eight Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) under section 27 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 as amended. CJAs are however free to allocate funds as they see fit across their CJA area in accordance with their area plan and in the way they see as most appropriate to fulfil their statutory obligations and to reduce reoffending.

It is for licensing boards to determine their own procedures in compliance with the legislation. Boards have wide discretion to determine appropriate licensing arrangements according to local needs and circumstances, and their own legal advice.

As they are independent bodies, licensing boards do not formally report to Scottish ministers or to local authorities.

There is national mandatory training for licensing board members, and Licensing Standards Officers, as well as for personal licence holders. We will look to update the guidance for licensing boards as soon as is practicable.

The Scottish Government engages regularly with the full range of relevant stakeholders to maintain an awareness of the issues they face.

Prior to the introduction of community payback orders (CPOs) on 1 February 2011, alcohol treatment/education conditions were imposed as part of probation orders.

The number of these conditions imposed for the year 2003-04 can be found in Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics, 2003-04 (Table 25). This publication is available online on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/35596/0029083.pdf.

Numbers for the years 2004-05 to 2011-12 can be found in the crime and justice statistics datasets (worksheet “POs-conditions”). These are available online on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/POs

The number of Alcohol Treatment Requirements that have been imposed as part of CPOs in 2011-12 and 2013-14 can be found in the Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics in Scotland, 2013-14 statistical bulletin (Table 10). This publication is available online on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00474323.pdf. This is the most up to date information currently available.

It is important to note that Alcohol Treatment Requirements are not the only mechanism for individuals to receive support for alcohol problems under a CPO. The annual CPO reports received from local authorities highlight that alcohol misuse issues are often addressed under the offender supervision, conduct or other activity requirements.

The Care Inspectorate is in regular contact, and meets, with senior managers of HC-One. Within these meetings, and out with, a range of issues are discussed including information which may call into question the financial viability of a care home or service. This information helps determine the level of risk, potential impact and any action that may be required in terms of contingency planning.

HC-One has 42 care homes, two support services and one housing support service in Scotland and these are operated through one named provider HC–One Limited. All 45 services were previously operated by Southern Cross Healthcare.

NHS continuing healthcare has never been subject to a specific funding stream, and no funding has ceased as a consequence of our publication of new guidance. Estimates undertaken during the development of the revised guidance suggested that around 385 people each year become eligible for what was NHS continuing healthcare. Most of these people would be care for in a hospital setting under the new and previous guidance. Around 100 people who might have been eligible for NHS continuing healthcare and could be cared for outside of a hospital setting might be liable for their accommodation costs. We anticipate that long stay hospital usage will reduce.

Every NHS board has a statutory duty to provide, or secure the provision of, primary medical services to meet their patient populations’ reasonable needs. Assessing the robustness and resilience of general practice already forms part of that on-going process and all 14 health boards have a primary care risk register in place.

A Stronger Scotland: The Government’s Programme for Scotland 2015-16 referred to 10 primary and community care test sites which will be used to inform service reform. Those sites specifically mentioned with the Programme for Government are examples of:

Work in progress towards integrated services (such as Edinburgh Headroom and Govan Integrated Care and the work involving the merging of two GP practices in Tayside);

Innovative plans in the early stages of implementation (Community Hub sites in Forth Valley and Fife);

Being Here test sites in Campbeltown, West Lochaber, Isle of Islay and Mid Argyll; and

Existing examples of good practice, which include various types of community healthcare centres like the one in Clackmannanshire.

As each of these initiatives does not necessarily apply to all patients within each practice listed we are unable to provide numbers of patients involved.

In addition, we have supported the development of a cluster model as the basis for improving patient care within Aberdeen. This involves six practices across three Community Health Partnerships with practices in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray with a combined patient population of around 60,000 working together to ensure a fully integrated approach to patient care.

The £20.5 million Primary Care Transformation Fund aims to build on existing good practice and will include more tests of change leading to the development of a broader set of well-evidenced changes. This will be allocated over three years and will prototype the new vision for the GP contract. The Scottish Government will shortly be inviting all health boards/Integration joint boards to develop proposals to test new ways of working in primary care. These projects together with those already being progressed will inform the future redesign of primary care.

The following table shows the weekly National Care Home Contract rates for 2007-08 and 2015-16.

The final column shows the 2007-08 values expressed in 2015-16 prices, based on the use of the UK GDP deflator series published by UK Treasury.