Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive has regular communications with the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives in relation to general health and wellbeing in the workplace. The Centre makes information available to employers and employees on shift working through its website and advice line.

Information leaflets about the Scottish Breast Screening Service are available in various languages from NHS Health Scotland.

These leaflets are available to download from the NHS Health Scotland website at:

http://www.healthscotland.com/topics/health-topics/screening/breast.aspx.

NHS boards throughout Scotland run local initiatives to help improve informed uptake of breast screening.

To support the HPV vaccination programme a major awareness raising campaign was funded by the Scottish Government. This campaign has run since the launch of the vaccination programme in 2008. A range of information materials have been produced and made available to girls and parents about the vaccination.

All girls eligible for the HPV vaccine are provided with an information leaflet, either by their school prior to vaccination or from their NHS board if they have left school. Information leaflets are also available for health care professionals and parents and carers of girls eligible for vaccination.

A website, www.fightcervicalcancer.org.uk, has been specifically created to support the vaccination programme. The website contains a range of information materials in addition to electronic versions of the leaflets that have been produced. A free NHS helpline number which girls can call for impartial advice and information is also available.

In addition to this national activity many NHS boards will themselves undertake local awareness raising activity to promote the benefits of the vaccine.

A survey of sodium intake was conducted in Scotland in 2006 to measure progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets. The mean estimated salt intake was found to be 9.1g per day (10.6 and 7.6 g per day for men and women respectively).

A UK survey in 2008 showed a reduction in the UK''s average daily salt consumption to 8.6g. In 2009, a second survey was commissioned to measure any change from 2006 in Scotland. The 2009 sodium survey is ongoing. The report of this survey was submitted for peer review in December 2010 it is expected that the report will be published later in 2011.

The number of children under 16 admitted to an adult psychiatric ward are:

2007-08: 28

2008-09: 34

2009-10: 35

The latest figures from the Mental Welfare Commission show that the number of young people under the age of 16 who were admitted to adult mental health beds is similar to that of the previous year. However the number of young males admitted has increased whilst the number of females has decreased. This may be due to young males requiring urgent admission for other mental health problems with young women more likely being admitted on an arranged basis, often for eating disorders.

With regard to the number who were deemed to be admitted inappropriately this information is not available.

Further information can be obtained at:

http://reports.mwcscot.org.uk/annual_monitoring/overview2009-2010/monitoringourpriorityareas2010/young_people_under_18_2010.aspx.

There are two sets of salt targets, population targets and industry targets. The agreed population target is to reduce sodium intake of the Scottish population to 100mmol per day or 6g salt/day.

The Scottish Dietary Targets were first set out in Eating for Health: Diet Action Plan for Scotland and have since been reiterated in the Scottish Government''s  publications Healthy Eating, Active Living (2008), Recipe for Success National Food and Drink Policy (2009) and Preventing Overweight and Obesity in Scotland a Route Map Towards Healthy Weight (2010).

In 2006 the Food Standards Agency introduced voluntary salt reductions for industry across 80 categories of food, for achievement by 2010. Through a review in 2008 it was found that a number of retailers had already met these targets. Therefore, some of the 2008 targets were revised and a further version to create more challenging targets were set for achievement by 2012. You can find out more about the targets at:

http://www.food.gov.uk/scotland/scotnut/salt/saltreduction.

These industry targets remain in place in Scotland. The population-based Scottish dietary targets are currently monitored by the FSA urinary sodium survey.

This information is not available. The World Health Organization has a European Health for All Database with various indicators, however beds per 1 million of population for mental health admissions for children up to 16 years old are not one of the indicators.

http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/data-and-evidence/databases/european-health-for-all-database-hfa-db2.

Information on child/adolescent beds for Scotland is published on the ISD website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/3426.html.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to protecting the health budget by passing on Barnett consequentials in full from the UK settlement. However, it is for NHS boards to determine their workforce requirements, including specialist nurses, based on the clinical needs of the population and service developments in their area.

The Scottish Government does not collect information on individual losses or thefts from NHS hospitals and facilities or the dates they are reported but this information should be held on individual NHS board loss registers. The Scottish Government does however obtain a summary report on such losses from boards each year advising of the number of losses and their value and the totals reported are shown in the following table:

NHS Board	Number of Incidents	2007-08 £	Number of Incidents	2008-09 £	Number of Incidents	2009-10 £
Ayrshire and Arran	564	97,567	267	51,256	267	46,259
Borders	7	15,000	7	17,049	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	38	22,980	56	66,686	24	31,530
Fife	158	23,463	86	19,722	67	16,494
Forth Valley	35	11,643	77	79,879	40	34,237
Grampian	10	20,313	11	25,774	24	47,017
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	0	0	26	91,000	76	252,611
Highland	12	3,920	6	787	20	166,637
Lanarkshire	42	9,059	447	66,132	293	95,526
Lothian	65	124,753	29	15,707	88	145,522
Orkney	3	1,236	4	2,016	4	2,860
Shetland	189	1,326	158	4,701	160	816
Tayside	107	48,228	99	133,750	17	111,619
Western Isles	22	12,181	2	12,370	0	0
NHS 24	0	0	70	49	45	8,180
NHS Education Scotland	0	0	1	625	29	104,192
NHS Health	3	9,108	0	0	7	47,506
National Services Scotland	1	300	0	0	1	200
State Hospital	1	343	0	0	5	9,611
National Waiting Time Centre	0	0	0	0	0	0
Quality Improvement Scotland	0	0	0	0	1	48
Scottish Ambulance Service	0	0	0	0	4	15,940
Total Losses	1,257	401,420	1,346	587,503	1,172	1,136,805

Source: NHS Boards Annual SFR 18 Return.

Note: The 2008-09 figures have been revised to reflect an amended return.

There have been two principal reasons for the increase in losses recorded by NHS boards:

Revised guidance issued by the Scottish Government has led to a more rigorous reporting of losses of unsettled bills for overseas visitors, previously some boards did not include these on their losses register e.g. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian.

There was a high value of stock write offs of medical products as a result of changes in clinical practice. While these are recorded on the losses register, these items have not been lost or stolen.

Data on the number of people having an increased risk of breast cancer resulting from shift working is not held centrally. We are aware of a number of published studies suggesting links between shift working and breast cancer, many of which are captured in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph available at:

http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol98/index.php.

However, evidence of an association is inconclusive and recently published papers which have examined the epidemiological evidence differ in their interpretation of the importance of shift-work as a causative factor in breast cancer. If individuals have any concerns, they should discuss these with their GP in the first instance.

There are steps people can take to reduce their risk of developing breast cancer, for example, being more active, keeping bodyweight within healthy limits and limiting alcohol consumption. The Scottish Government is implementing a wide ranging programme of actions to help people to make healthier lifestyle choices.