Chamber and committees

We do not expect any NHS board to require to enter into long-term (block) contracts with independent health care providers for the provision of secondary care services. The Health Delivery Directorate''s Access Support Team works very closely with NHS boards to ensure that the waiting times reductions set out in their Local Delivery Plans are met, including agreeing capacity plans, and will therefore be aware of any plans to make use of private sector capacity.

Based on the evidence from this programme, work is being undertaken through NHS Education for Scotland (NES) around cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), family therapy and child psychotherapy as well as psychodynamic psychotherapy. NES has funded an additional 20 supervisors places and 0.5 WTE staff in each NHS board to support supervision and training. Fifty additional places have also been created to increase the capacity within the south east of Scotland and Tayside CBT programmes.

At an individual NHS board level, work is underway to scope out the capacity of trained staff, and match this to demand, so that patients need can be met more effectively. Work has also been commissioned to establish an evidence base for psychological therapies in relation to different conditions and patient groups to assist NHS boards in their planning.

A pilot of a telephone based CBT programme will commence shortly, alongside the roll out of an evidence-based CBT guided self help programme. In addition, work is on-going with the Royal College of General Practitioners to assess the management of patients with depression who also have a physical condition such as diabetes and or coronary heart disease. These initiative will cover all Scotland and will cost around £3.5 million.

There is no requirement for alignment as NHS Information Services Division (ISD) does not collect attempted suicide and self-harm data direct from SPS. ISD use ICD10 codes to record morbidity and mortality relating to intentional self-harm and undetermined intent. Their primary source of such data is from the General Register Office for Scotland. The range of these codes is broad and not all relevant in a prison context.

Events of self-harm in prison are generally restricted to a few types, and SPS aims for highly accurate and specific information that is beyond the scope of a national reporting system. The five modality options SPS has adopted to record identified episodes of attempted suicide and self-harm are:

cutting: any scratching or laceration of the skin, no matter how superficial;

swallowing: the deliberate ingestion of any item other than illicit drugs or prescribed medication;

overdose: the deliberate ingestion of any illicit drug or prescribed medication with the intent to cause harm;

ligature: the deliberate application of an item around the neck as a means of restricting the intake of air, and

other: a free text option to record all other modalities.

Skye and Peebles Houses accommodate convicted prisoners who have made suitable progression and have the appropriate supervision level to allow them keys to their rooms.

Most of the prisoners located in Bruce and Younger Houses require a higher level of supervision and it would not be appropriate to allow them to leave their rooms during patrol and night shifts without a centralised control system.

There are no current plans to replace the central locking system in Bruce and Younger Houses.

The letter explained that first call on resources is to deliver screening for alcohol problems and brief interventions in line with a new NHS target, but that given the anticipated impact increased screening will have, we expect the majority of funding to be spent on commissioning treatment services in line with priorities identified through local Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, taking into account health inequalities.