Chamber and committees

It is wholly a matter for Post Office Ltd to decide which post offices it considers to be sustainable. Post offices are reserved under Schedule 5 (Section C11) of the Scotland Act 1998. The Scottish Government cannot fund post offices directly. The Scottish Government''s position on this issue was set out in the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth''s letter dated 29 January 2008 to the Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament, which is available on the Parliament''s website at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/petitions/petitionsubmissions/sub-08/08-PE1102D.pdf.

Guidance was issued to all local authority, independent and grant-aided schools in July 2006. Sections 2C of the guidance provided specific advice for boarding schools and secondary schools with hostels. It is available electronically at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/07/05121311/0.

The Healthy Living programme relates to health improvement and therefore contains no guidance on planning for a flu pandemic. Relevant guidance was however published in A Scottish Framework for responding to an influenza Pandemic on 22 November 2007. The framework reflects the fact that pandemic flu will have an impact across society and provides guidance and planning assumptions on which all business continuity plans for an outbreak should be made. The Scottish Government recognises that in the event of a flu pandemic the overall aim is to maintain business as usual as far as practicable and has been involved in considerable direct preparatory and planning work with key business sectors, such as energy, telecommunications, food, transport and water. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires local authorities to provide advice and assistance for those undertaking commercial activities, in relation to business continuity management, in the event of an emergency. In order to assist local authorities with their responsibilities, the Scottish Government produced a leaflet which local authorities could use as the basis for their approach to local businesses to promote business continuity planning, at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/178380/0050775.pdf.

Responsibility for liaison with voluntary organisations rests with Category 1 Responders as defined by the Civil Contingency Act 2004. Category 1 Responders are organisations such as local authorities, NHS boards, the police and the Fire and Rescue Services. Preparing Scotland, the Scottish Government guidance on preparing for emergencies, directs Category 1 responders to integrate the activities of voluntary organisations at all stages of preparation in order to ensure a coordinated approach and response to emergencies.

The Scottish Government has produced a range of guidance to support local planners. In July 2006, planning guidance was issued to schools and childcare settings, including secure units. This was followed in February 2008 by infection control guidance for these settings.

In November 2007, guidance documents on planning and infection control were issued to all care homes in Scotland. To date no specific guidance has been issued to hospices although the general pandemic flu planning and infection control guidance produced by the Scottish Government is applicable to this setting.

All of these documents are available on the Scottish Government website at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/pandemicflu.

As it is an Immigration Removal Centre, guidance on pandemic preparedness for Dungavel is issued by the UK Government.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for creating training modules for individual health care practitioners. This is because the content of any up-skilling programme must accommodate the individual learning needs of the practitioner in question and the specific competencies that require to be refreshed.

Legislation is in hand to ensure that retired and non-practising persons, or suitably experienced persons without the relevant qualifications, can be registered to provide healthcare during times of national emergency involving, or potentially involving, large scale loss of human life or human illness. It will be for the General Medical Council (GMC), Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB), or the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to decide whether the person or specified group of persons in question should be temporarily registered as medical practitioners, pharmacists or as nurses or midwives with greater prescribing rights.

In the winter of 2000-01, 5.9% of those aged 65 years and over had received pneumococcal vaccination. This rose to 19.4% before the 2003-04 vaccination programme and to 67.7% at the end of the first year of the programme. By 2005-06 73.0% had received the pneumococcal vaccination.

In relation to splenic dysfunction (a broad category which includes asplenia), 0.02% of those aged 65 years and over had this as a diagnosis as at March 2006. 85.7% of this group had apparently received pneumococcal vaccine, but there is a caveat with these particular figures as the numbers are small and it is possible that some of the individuals had previously received pneumococcal vaccine either in hospital post splenectomy or in general practice.

Work is currently being undertaken to produce Pandemic Flu Scottish Guidance on Health Workforce. This will include advice to NHS employers regarding the need to build up a local pool of staff currently outside the NHS such as the recently retired. Boards should seek to build up for themselves as detailed a picture as possible of the skills of their staff and in doing so assess likely capacity and identify training requirements.

Plans are also being developed to create surge capacity to allow flexibility in meeting demand during a pandemic or other emergency.

A draft version of the guidance can be viewed on:

www.Scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/AvianInfluenza/PandemicFlu.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11972 on 25 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.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Information available centrally is only for cognitive behavioural therapists employed/managed in psychology services in each NHS Board in NHSScotland.

This information is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under Workforce Statistics at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5381.html. Latest available data are at 30 September 2007.