Chamber and committees

The European Council published a recommendation on rare diseases in 2009 that proposes a national plan for rare diseases. The Scottish Government fully supports this recommendation and is working with officials from across the UK to explore the extent to which the UK meets the requirements of the recommendation and to agree areas of possible collaboration and progress in the future.

In relation to the evaluation of medicines, Scotland has robust, equitable and transparent arrangements for the introduction of newly licensed clinically and cost-effective medicines to treat all conditions, including rare diseases. In appraising orphan medicines to treat rare diseases, the Scottish Medicines Consortium may, in addition to the standard assessment of clinical and cost-effectiveness, apply modifiers which consider other additional factors. Subject to meeting certain criteria, this can facilitate acceptance of a medicine notwithstanding the economic evidence provided. Full details of the Scottish Medicines Consortium policies can be found on the SMC website:

http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/smc/3863.21.24.html.

NHS boards also have arrangements that provide an opportunity at local level for clinically led consideration of medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances.

The Report of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders within Scottish Prisons was published on 28 June 2002. Since the publication, legislation and policy has progressed.

HMP Glenochil does not have a child-free visit area in addition to a general visits area.

However, arrangements are in place to ensure, as far as reasonably possible, that prisoners who present a risk to children, and who are not permitted visits with minors, are segregated at visits from those prisoners who may receive visits from children. This practice is consistent with other sites that hold sex offenders.

Furthermore, seating arrangements at visits are controlled and visits are strictly supervised by staff and are supported by CCTV facilities.

The number of courses of treatment varies from patient to patient, depending on their response to initial treatment and the general health of the individual patient. This is a clinical decision made at a multidisciplinary team meeting and should involve a full discussion with the patient and their family or carer.

Currently, patients with resectable osteosarcoma who are under the age of 40 are recruited to the Euramos clinical trial. This is an international study by four leading multi-institutional osteosarcoma groups based in the USA, Germany-Austria, Europe and Scandinavia. Patients follow the standard treatment regimens according to which arm of the study they are randomised to and, therefore, costs are variable.

The sex offenders transferred into HMP Glenochil are housed on two levels of one houseblock, separate from non-sex offender prisoners. HMP Glenochil does not at this time receive prisoners directly from the courts therefore all convicted prisoners (including sex offenders) are transferred to Glenochil from other prisons.

As at the 6 December 2010, there were no sex offenders at HMP Glenochil who are serving sentences of less than one year and four months.

All sex offenders sentenced to six months or longer are subject to statutory post-release supervision. They therefore meet the criteria for the Enhanced Integrated Case Management process, which includes formal risk assessment and structured risk management planning. As a result, they would all be considered for interventions to address their offending, though it can be challenging to arrange this in custody when the sentence is very short.

Long-term adult offenders, including sex offenders, are subject to strict release conditions. Under current arrangements prisoners are allocated to their area of residence within seven days of admission to prison. This definition of residency is based on the prisoner''s address at arrest and their court of disposal. Once set, the respective local authority manages the offender''s case through imprisonment onto release. Any requests to change residency will be dealt with between the relevant local authorities.

The current practice of returning prisoners, including sex offenders, to a prison in their home area prior to release will continue. Therefore we would anticipate that only offenders defined as resident in Clackmannanshire would be released back into Clackmannanshire.

HMP Glenochil''s focus for programme delivery, until 31 March 2011, was agreed in early 2010 before the decision was made to transfer sex offenders. SPS is currently undertaking the evaluation of the Good Lives Sex Offender Programme which is being tested at HMP Peterhead. Once this is completed, it is expected that HMP Glenochil will feature in the SPS''s strategy for the delivery of offending behaviour programmes specifically targeted at sex offenders.

At present, the option remains to transfer prisoners to other appropriate SPS locations in order to access necessary offending behaviour programmes at an appropriate point in the prisoners sentence.