Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11402 on 14 April 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.

Most diagnoses are made by standard local laboratory testing for Clostridium difficile toxins, not culture/isolation of the organism. The latter is required for typing, which is carried out at the Scottish Reference Laboratory. The Reference Laboratory has specific guidance setting out the criteria for when to culture and submit specimens for typing which cover those situations where typing can contribute to the management and investigation of cases. Presently, there are insufficient numbers of typed isolates to allow any kind of meaningful national analysis.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) is taking forward an epidemiological study with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to better understand why the data on deaths due to Clostridium difficile at the Vale of Leven Hospital appeared to show unusual limits.

This study is one of a number of actions that appear in our National Action Plan, in response to the recommendations arising from the publication of the HPS Report on Review of Clostridium difficile Associated Disease Cases and Mortality in all Acute Hospitals in Scotland from December 2007 - May 2008 and the Independent Review Report on the Clostridium difficile Outbreaks at Vale of Leven Hospital. The National Action Plan is available from the HAI Task Force website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/NHS-Scotland/19529/2005/actionplans.

The hospitals and NHS board with outsourced or PFI cleaning contracts are as follows:

NHS Ayrshire and Arran “ East Ayrshire Community Hospital. PFI contract over 25 years benchmarked on a five-yearly basis.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde “ Drumchapel. Rolling contract requiring three months notice.

Parts of the Southern General Hospital

Langlands Building with a 10 year contract with two years to run before best value/market test.

Mearnskirk contract currently under renegotiation.

NHS Highland “ New Craigs Hospital, Inverness. PFI contract due for benchmarking within next 12 months.

NHS Lanarkshire “ Hairmyres Hospital. PFI contract for thirty years commencing March 2001.

Wishaw Hospital. PFI contract for thirty years commencing June 1998.

NHS Lothian “ Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. PFI contract, benchmarking at present and again in five years.

Ellensglen House “ PFI to be market tested in 2008.

Ferryfield House “ PFI to be market tested in four years time.

Tippethill “ PFI to be market tested in five years time.

NHS Shetland “ Contract awarded for five years in 2007.

Each NHS board has an infection control manual which contains guidance on the prevention and control of Clostridium difficile. In addition model infection control policies (which cover the management of soiled linen) are available on Health Protection Scotland website at http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-15208 on 22 August 2008. There are six hospitals and one NHS board with outsourced or PFI contract cleaning services.

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.

All GP IM&T Clinical systems operating in NHS Scotland need to be compliant with the Scottish Enhanced Functionality (SEF) requirements. All GP IM&T Clinical systems are compatible with the Emergency Care Summary (ECS) and send extracts of information on a daily basis.

(a) Out-of-hours (OOH) service data systems, including NHS24.

Links are in place between both the OOH and NHS24 systems and ECS to ensure the information is directly available to those users.

(b) Accident and emergency data systems.

Links are in place between accident and emergency systems and ECS to ensure the information is available to those users.

(c) Scottish Care Information.

(i) SCI Store - all GP IM&T Clinical systems are compatible with SCI Store

(ii) SCI Gateway - all GP IM&T Clinical systems are compatible with SCI Gateway

(iii) SCI Diabetes - all GP IM&T Clinical systems are compatible with SCI-DC and send diabetes information on a daily basis. Work is progressing to allow information to be passed back from SCI-DC to GP IM&T Clinical systems to facilitate the transfer of diabetic information from Acute to Primary Care services.

(d) ePharmacy.

All GP IM&T Clinical systems are compatible with the ePharmacy Acute Medication Services (AMS) and work is underway to complete rollout across all GP practices.

All GP IM&T Clinical systems are currently completing development stages to be able to demonstrate compatibility for the forthcoming ePharmacy Chronic Medication Service.

The Scottish Government has not set a specific target for IM&T expenditure but has committed to fund future growth in eHealth in the Strategic Spending Review. The national eHealth budget will progressively increase from under £40 million in 2005-06 to a forecast £140 million in 2010-11. This does not take into account NHS board expenditure on IM&T which is in addition to this budget.

The Scottish Government did not centrally collate this information in 2005-06. In 2006-07, the Scottish Government conducted a national IM&T expenditure survey. Outturn expenditure across NHS Scotland was £166 million revenue and £61 million capital. Information on outturn against budget was not centrally collated. A 2007-08 expenditure survey has not yet been conducted.

NHS Fife are not currently signed up to the eProcurement Scotland. However, they do have a local solution for automating procurement transactions, which is extensively deployed.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are users of eProcurement Scotland. However, the full implementation is still to be rolled-out.