- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 28 August 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 17 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-15136 by Shona Robison on 18 August 1008, what steps it is taking to ensure equity of access to GPs for patients across Scotland and, in particular, in areas such as Fife, Lanarkshire, Tayside and the Borders, where practices have opted out of extended hours.
Answer
Now that a majority of GP practices in Scotland are committed to offering extended hours, as at 29 August, 52 per cent of practices are either participating or expected to start shortly, we will be monitoring closely the comparative uptake across board areas.
As a first step we have asked those boards with lower uptake rates to re-approach GP practices who have declined to take up extended hours, concentrating the discussion on the particular circumstances of each individual practice and how exisitng flexibilities might be used to make it possible for those practices to participate.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 September 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 17 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, as part of support for kinship carers, all children placed with kin formally or informally should receive free school meals.
Answer
Currently all primary and secondary pupils being educated by local authorities, and whose parents or carers are entitled to:
Income support, or
Income based job seekers allowance, or
Are in receipt of child tax credit, but not working tax credit, and whose income is less than £15,575 in 2008-09 as assessed by Her Majesty''s Revenue and Customs
Are entitled to free school meals.
As a result of the concordat between the Scottish Government and local government it is intended to extend this entitlement to those parents or carers in receipt of both maximum child tax credit and maximum working tax credit from August 2009 subject to necessary legislation being passed by the Parliament.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps have been taken since the debate on motion S3M-73 on motor neurone disease (MND), in addition to the letter from the Minister for Public Health to NHS boards encouraging them to formalise their working relationships with organisations such as the Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association, to examine the concept of shared funding, along the lines of hospice funding, to provide additional support to carers of people with MND and to ensure equity of access for them and their families.
Answer
Better Health, Better Care signalled our intention of carrying out a strategic review of the way in which NHSScotland supports voluntary organisations, in order to explore ways in which to enhance the sustainability of programmes that demonstrate clear benefits to patients and their carers.
A key way of improving services is by implementing clinical standards. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) is working on clinical standards specifically for Motor Neurone Disease as part of its overall work on neurological standards.
Officials from the Health Directorates had discussions some time ago with the Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association about developing a Managed Clinical Network for MND at a national level, and we have indicated our willingness to provide support and advice for this work.
We are also taking a number of steps to help make sure that carers can access the support they need to care effectively and are providing £9 million over the next three years so that NHSScotland can improve carer identification and information and help expand carers'' centre support. In addition, we will be setting out our priorities in a new Carers'' Strategy next year, based on a review of progress against the recommendations of the Care 21 Report The Future of Unpaid Care in Scotland.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 12 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-14201 by Shona Robison on 24 June 2008, what response has been received from each NHS board to the Minister for Public Health’s letter encouraging boards to formalise their working relationships with organisations such as the Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Answer
NHS Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Forth Valley, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Lothian, Shetland and Tayside indicated that they were either providing 50% support for the services provided by Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association, or were in the process of developing an agreement with the association.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 10 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive when it will bring forward regulations to implement section 74 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007.
Answer
The Scottish Government is currently developing the regulations to support the implementation of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007; this includes the regulations under section 74.
Due to the nature of the regulations relating to section 74 we are working with the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Information Commissioner''s Office in order to ensure that these regulations are fit for purpose. A consultation on the regulations will be published later this year, with section 74 of the 2007 act being implemented with the rest of the 2007 act early in 2009. We will ensure that Dr Richard Simpson receives the consultation paper when it is issued.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 10 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, when a court makes a Permanence Order, it is intended that the court apply section 74 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 or whether this will only apply to those for whom it is the intention that they are or may be adopted later.
Answer
The power to make regulations under section 74 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 relate specifically to the disclosure of information about the health of the natural parents of a child who is to be, may be or has been adopted. Therefore, the regulations will only apply in cases where the intention is that the child will be, or has been, adopted rather than where an application for a Permanence Order is being considered by the court.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the findings of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland’s Health Technology Assessment Report 11, The clinical effectiveness of thromboelastography/thromboelastometry, whether it will introduce a national procurement contract for analysers and consumables for thromboelastography/thromboelastometry and, if so, when.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-15695 on 9 September 2008. 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/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the findings of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland’s Health Technology Assessment Report 11, The clinical effectiveness of thromboelastography/thromboelastometry, when the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service will make available to users the costs of commonly used blood products.
Answer
The findings of this Health Technology Assessment Report will be considered in the Scottish Health Technologies Group in due course.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 August 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 9 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what provisions it is making for additional support to families where there are multiple births.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to providing support to all parents, including those families where there are multiple births.
A Framework for Maternity Service in Scotland outlines the principles which govern maternity services from pre-conception, through pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal care and into parenthood, so as to ensure that maternity care is organised in a way that is appropriate and accessible to the needs of all women and that is tailored to suit their individual needs.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 31 July 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 9 September 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what savings were achieved by the eProcurement Scotland service best procurement implementation programme in (a) 2005-06, (b) 2006-07 and (c) 2007-08.
Answer
The best procurement implementation (BPI) programme was initiated by NHS National Service Scotland to identify and deliver savings through better procurement and improved operational processes. eProcurement Scotland (ePS) was one of seven workstreams in that programme. The savings from BPI reported to the health department were overall programme savings figures from all activities and not solely from ePS
The reported figures for delivered savings are:
2003-06 - £34.6 million
2006-07 - £26.1 million
2007-08 - £23 million.
