Chamber and committees

Boards will, as part of monitoring performance against the NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard, be required to identify timescales within which their local employment policies will be compliant with each new/revised partnership information network (PIN) policy and, subsequently, to evidence compliance within that identified timescale. The results of such performance monitoring are used to inform Board Annual Reviews. Timescales for compliance can also be monitored through the national and local NHSScotland partnership structures.

Timescales for implementation will be agreed by individual boards in accordance with their local policy review timescales. It is therefore not possible to be prescriptive about what is considered to be reasonable. Boards will, however, as part of monitoring performance against the NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard, be required to identify timescales within which their local policies will be compliant with each new/revised partnership information network (PIN) policy and, subsequently, to evidence compliance within that identified timescale. The results of such performance monitoring are used to inform Board Annual Reviews. Timescales for compliance can also be monitored through the national and local NHSScotland partnership structures.

NHS Scotland published National Occupational Standards in 2011, which give detail of the skills required to encourage individual behaviour change to achieve a healthy weight.

Funding for adult weight management will be devolved to NHS boards in 2012-13. Many NHS boards have indicated that they will continue to use Counterweight to deliver local services. Central funding and distribution of resources will be facilitated for 2012-13.

As advised in my response to your additional question S4W-06383 on 24 April 2012, the Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance Committee have considered the issue of a helpline and concluded that it was not required at that stage. However, I will ask them to revisit the issue of a helpline in light of implementation of the new Implementing and Reviewing Whistleblowing Arrangements in NHSScotland Partnership Information Network (PIN) Policy and report back to me before the end of the year.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The recording of movement of older patients within hospitals will be in line with best clinical practice and relevant standards and guidelines, including the Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland, published in June 2011. The standards require boards to ensure that “systems are in place to monitor the number of moves people with dementia are subjected to while in hospital”. These Standards complement guidance on moves within hospital, Preparing for Winter 2011-12, issued in October 2011.

NHS boards are responsible for monitoring moves within hospital locally in line with the standards. The Scottish Government collects boarding data, as described in Preparing for Winter 2011-2012.

The recording of movement of older people within hospitals is an area that will be inspected against by Healthcare Improvement Scotland as part of the current programme of inspections into the care of older people in hospitals.

Prior to inspection, NHS boards are required to carry out a self-assessment, which includes assessing their practice against the eight core standards for people with dementia in hospitals set out in Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland. Inspection teams will inspect against these core standards.

The Scottish Government has set up a national Implementation and Monitoring Group to oversee the implementation in hospitals of the dementia standards, in order to ensure that all strands of this work are joined up and to monitor progress.

As part of Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy, we commissioned an academic report into time trends in the prescribing of antipsychotic and other psychotropic medication to older people with dementia between 2001-11. This report includes an analysis of the national and wider factors influencing such prescribing trends by GPs and other medical professionals.

We are currently considering the report’s findings and recommendations and they will inform a commitment to reduce inappropriate prescribing of psychoactive medication for dementia to be finalised this year.

NHS boards have been asked to confirm that they have implemented the advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority.

No hospital departments or Doctors in Training have any derogations from the Working Time Regulations.

The national delayed discharge census does not collect information on any movement of patients prior to discharge, it collects the setting and principal reason for delay on the day of the census.