Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government's response Renewing Scotland's Public Services: priorities for reform in response to the Christie Commission was published in September 2011. We continue to look at how we can further reduce duplication across NHS boards.

The delivery of the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource is being led by NHS National Services Scotland, with oversight of a project board comprising key stakeholder groups, including the Scottish Government, NHS boards, GPs (including the Royal College of General Practitioners and Scottish General Practitioners Committee) and patients. The deployment of software to practices is underway and currently planned to complete by end January 2017, on budget.

The Scottish Government expects all patients, regardless of their condition, to have timely access to the full range of healthcare services they require following clinical assessment. The chronic pain waiting times are developmental data to assess the issues in access to chronic pain clinics and pain psychology services.

We continue to work with NHS National Services Scotland’s Information Services Division and NHS boards to improve the consistency and completeness of the information collected.

The following table shows how many GP practices are on a 2C arrangement in each NHS board.

*One practice will leave 2C arrangements 1 May 2016

Since 1997 boards have appointed Caldicott guardians as the senior advisors on how patient information is used internally and externally. Although there is no absolute requirement for the person to be medically qualified, the Scottish Government understands that they are directors of public health or in senior clinical roles. In addition, boards are appointing Senior Information Risk Owners (SIROs) who cover the whole information risk landscape (patient, employee and corporate information). A SIRO must be at executive level, but can be from a medical or non-medical background.

There are 47 GP practices run directly by health boards, making up a small percentage of the 987 practices across Scotland. Of these one is closed to new patient registrations and two have restrictions on new patient registrations.

NHS boards work with GP practices to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to GP services.

The boards outlined in the following table have implemented the single sign-on and password reset system. Details of users, the number of applications involved and the number of single sign on accesses over a seven day period are also provided. Over 60,000 workstations (desktop and laptop computers) have had the enhanced functionality provided by single sign-on, including fast user switching, multiple user sessions and two factor authentication.

National systems and services such as Trakcare, Carestream PACS, SCI store and Clinical portal are profiled at the outset for single sign on. Following on from that other high usage applications and service are identified. Details of all specific applications and services covered on a board by board basis are not held centrally.

Information on return appointments is not collected centrally. Each patient may require a different timescale for follow up appointments, as clinically determined. We do, however, expect patients to be seen within the most appropriate timescale for their condition following a clinical assessment.

To date 28.4 whole time equivalent pharmacists have been appointed attached to GP practices or clusters of practices since the primary care funding to recruit up to 140 pharmacists was announced.

It is the role of the Scottish Government to provide policies, frameworks and resources to NHS boards so they can deliver services that meet the needs of their local populations. Within this context, the actual provision of healthcare services is the responsibility of local NHS boards, taking into account national guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment.