Chamber and committees

This PIN guideline is currently under review. As part of this process, the review group will consider and include the provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 which gives workers automatic protection for raising a matter internally and the right to make disclosures to prescribed regulators, as well as to make disclosures more widely, in certain circumstances as prescribed within the act. The revised PIN will be published in April 2011.

This PIN guideline is currently under review. As part of this process, the review group will consider and include the provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which gives workers automatic protection for raising a matter internally and the right to make disclosures to prescribed regulators, as well as to make disclosures more widely, in certain circumstances as prescribed within the act. The revised PIN will be published in April 2011.

The Scottish Government does however provide (largely through the Scottish Resilience Development Service) multi-agency training and exercising opportunities for responders. Scottish emergency planning and response is based on the principles of integrated emergency management which focuses on the effects of events rather than their causes. Since 1 February 2010, the Scottish Resilience Development Service has co-ordinated numerous training events and exercises for responders, which will support agencies in planning for, and responding to, to a range of major incidents (including adverse weather) and their consequences.

The information is recorded by dispatch code so the SAS is unable to provide definitive numbers of heroin/opiate related overdoses as some may have been categorised as not alert, for example. On that basis, a full breakdown of relevant codes, extracted from the most up-to-date version of the dispatch codes at that time, has been provided.

Notes:

1. While all overdose/poisoning chief complaints are 999 emergency calls, the codes can be Category A, B or C determinants.

2. The dispatch code is determined through questioning of a caller and is based on information available at the time of call. As such, the numbers within the specific heroin and cocaine determinant cannot be considered as a complete picture of overdose in respect of these two drugs as in many cases, the reason for overdose will not be apparent until paramedics arrive on scene.

3. SAS does not currently record incidents where drugs and/or alcohol have been a factor beyond that provided above. SAS cannot, therefore, provide any analysis on a combination of drugs or whether drugs were a factor in any other incidents

4. SAS does not record details of outcomes for patients as their data systems only record ambulance service information; that is, up to the point at which they have completed treatment on scene or handed a patient over at hospital.

While there can be no guarantee that the area affected will be perfectly returned to its pre-construction condition, any undergrounding of the main Beauly to Denny line would be undertaken in accordance with the appropriate environmental regulations and best practice to ensure that its impact was minimised.

However, the 2009-10 figure contains short-term funding for NHS Tayside that came to an end during that period. Without this short-term funding the actual budget would have been £12,946,096 compared to the core budget for 2010-11 of £13,013,096.

The exact budget for 2011-12 is still to be determined but as things stand we envisage that the specific funding made available will remain at 2010-11 levels.

The above figures are in 2009-10 prices and are based on the GDP deflator http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/data_gdp_fig.htm.