Chamber and committees

This information is not held centrally and I have asked the Chief Officer of Waterwatch to reply to the member.

The costs in 2008-09 and 2009-10 of Waterwatch Scotland are set out in its annual report which is laid in the Parliament annually and is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. The budgeted costs of Waterwatch Scotland for 2010-11 are set out in its corporate plan which can be found at http://www.waterwatchscotland.org/publications/waterwatch-scotland-corporate-plan-2010-11/.

No national medication reinsurance scheme operates in Scotland. However, NHS boards do participate in the national orphan drugs risk share scheme. Eculizumab is not included in that scheme.

The prevalence of paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria is estimated to be 13 cases per million.

The potential savings which could be made if sickness absence were reduced in all NHS Boards to (a) the average, and (b) the lowest quartile of all Boards, are detailed in the following table (based on absence rates within NHSScotland for the period 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010).

	Potential Savings if Sickness Absence was NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate3, 4	Potential Savings if Sickness Absence was Lower Quartile Rate 5
Total	£6,410,477	£22,684,618

 

The following table shows the NHSScotland Workforce reduction in sickness absence rates and the financial savings generated for the years 2005-06 to 2009-10.

Years	2005-06 to 2006-07	2006-07 to 2007-08	2007-08 to 2008-09	2008-09 to 2009-10
% Change in NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate6	0.32%	-0.26%	-0.34%	-0.20%
Savings generated7	(£13,814,182)	£12,102,882	£16,595,490	£10,050,433

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System.

Notes:

Potential savings do not include extra costs or losses in efficiency incurred by boards to cover absences (e.g. Bank, Agency and Locum costs).

Potential Savings are calculated as follows:

(Actual Sickness Absence Rate * Total Paybill Cost) - (Comparative Sickness Absence Rate * Total Paybill Cost).

Total Paybill Cost includes total pay plus employer contributions which, for NHSScotland for 2009-2010 (for permanent, fixed term and fixed/temporary contract types) was £5,125,491,302.

The NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate is the total working hours lost divided by the total contracted hours.

The NHSScotland Sickness Absence Rate of 4.75% has been used to calculate potential savings in this scenario.

The Lower Quartile Sickness Absence Rate (4.33%) is the median of the lower half of NHS board''s sickness absence rates.

This is calculated as the difference between one financial year''s sickness absence rate and the previous financial year''s sickness absence rate. This is shown as a positive for an increase in the sickness absence rate and a negative for a decrease in the sickness absence rate.

Savings generated is calculated as: Total Paybill Cost * Percentage Change in sickness absence rate. A loss is shown in brackets.

Draft Standard 1, Essential Criteria 1.1 states that clinical assessments of mobility and mobility needs are person-centred and anticipatory. This corresponds with the Quality Ambitions detailed in the Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHS Scotland, and also with recommendation 3 of Moving Forward, which states that at referral, assessment and provision, services will be led by requirements of users and carers.

VAT is the responsibility of individual public bodies and as such information on their VAT costs is not held centrally.

Figures are available in relation to savings in VAT paid in respect of the Scottish Government''s own VAT registration, covering core activities. These figures exclude NHS boards, local authorities and non-departmental public bodies.

During the period January 2009 to December 2009 the saving in expenditure resulting from the reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15% was:

Period January 2009 to December 2009

Directorate General	Saving £ million
Economy and Chief Economic Adviser	0.14
Education	0.23
Health and Chief Executive NHS Scotland	0.29
Justice and Communities	0.81
Permanent Secretary	0.33
Rural Affairs, Environment and Services	1.32
Total	3.12

In relation to extra costs during 2011 as a result of the VAT increase, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-34796 on 14 July 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The next meeting of the Reshaping the Medical Workforce Project board will be on 17 March 2011. I will arrange for the minutes of that meeting and all future meetings to be placed on the SPICe website.

In any cases where boards have had trainee reductions due to disestablishment, the base salary for the post has been returned to the board. There are, of course, other trainee movements that are dictated by training requirements and there have always been movements between boards.

NHS Fife made the decision to provide a minor injuries service at Victoria Hospital during out of hours periods in the interests of ensuring patient safety, avoiding the uncertainty involved in the previous contingency arrangements about when and from where full emergency services would be provided, and to establish the new single site working patterns that will be required when emergency services move to Victoria Hospital in early 2012 after completion of the major building project. The earlier problems were not caused by withdrawal of training numbers but by recruitment issues and gaps in rotas/lack of locums.