Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government wrote to all NHS boards on the 15 July 2008. All boards with disused hospital premises were asked to carry out a physical inspection to ensure that no patient identifiable information is present. All boards have been asked to confirm when this has been completed. The outcome of these checks will be reported to the Parliament. To date responses have been received from 19 out of 22 territorial and special health boards. All territorial boards operating hospitals have responded to indicate that checks have been completed and no patient identifiable data was present. Responses from three special health boards are awaited to indicate whether they have such premises and the outcome of any checks.

The eHealth Programme currently has two HEAT Targets:

E1 - Universal utilisation of the Community Health Index (CHI) number; and

E7 - To increase the percentage of new GP outpatient referrals into consultant led secondary care services that are triaged online for clinical priority and appropriate recipient service to 90% from December 2010.

Monitoring arrangements are in place. On eReferral NHS boards are required to produce local delivery plan trajectories on an annual basis as part of the HEAT process. This includes providing a trajectory for the percentage of referrals triaged electronically, against which performance is monitored monthly.

NHS boards are required to provide monthly performance monitoring information on their use of the CHI number on clinical communications. Performance is monitored against targets on a monthly basis, and additional support is provided to boards where that is required.

Patients and community pharmacies were invited to participate in a survey carried out by the previous administration in 2006 and designed to gather their views on the domiciliary oxygen therapy service (DOTS). The representative body, Community Pharmacy Scotland, was not directly involved but many of their members responded to the community pharmacy survey. A total of 820 patients and 164 community pharmacies responded to the surveys.

I have agreed to a second phase of the DOTS review to consider the impact of recent developments. The second phase will comprise commissioned research and the establishment of a review group to consider all of the issues. The review group will directly involve Community Pharmacy Scotland.

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.

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 national software to support cervical screening (the Scottish Cervical call recall system, SCCRS) was implemented 29 May 2007.  The national software to support screening of diabetic retinopathy (diabetic retinopathy system, DRS) was implemented in all NHS boards in 2006-07. The national software to support bowel screening (bowel screening system, BoSS) was implemented 4 June 2007.

In addition to these new systems, there are other long established national IT systems supporting other screening programmes such as breast screening, and newborn and pregnancy screening which are updated as required.

National information management and technology projects now underway are as listed in the eHealth Strategy of June 2008 under Significant procurements or developments on page 23. These are listed below with the target completion dates that were stated in the strategy:

- Modernise the national CHI index (end 2009)

- Procurement of Patient Management System (contract in place spring 2009, roll-out thereafter, live in three NHS Boards by 2011)

- Procurement of identity management and Single Sign-on (contract in place spring 2009, roll-out thereafter, live in three NHS boards by 2011)

- Managed transition from GPASS (contract in place summer 2009, roll-out thereafter with a date to be agreed for migration of last GPASS practice)

- Complete the business case and take decisions around the proposed national HR system. (by September 2008).

Of these, all are on track to deliver by the stated dates with the exception of proposed national HR system where it has been decided that end 2008 is a more appropriate target date.

Further performance indicators relate to project disciplines such as governance arrangements and quality assurance measures being established within each project. All the above projects are currently satisfying these disciplines.

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.