Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to the use of continuous quality improvement in the delivery of healthcare in general practice. Scotland is the first country in the world to implement a national patient safety programme across the whole healthcare system and The Scottish Patient Safety Programme in Primary Care (SPSP-PC) was launched 14 March 2013.

To help deliver a person-centred programme of care for patients the Scottish Government is exploring, and supporting, a range of options to ensure the people of Scotland are provided with NHS services which meet their needs and maintains high standards of care.

Patients are at the heart of our NHS and everyone in Scotland has the right to expect the highest quality of care when they need it. This commitment is embedded in our Quality Strategy for the NHS.

Although GPs are independent contractors, they are still given consideration when planning the NHS Scotland workforce. At present the structure and training of all doctors in the UK, including GPs, is under review. The Scottish Government is actively involved in these discussions to ensure that specific service needs in Scotland are addressed.

With regard to health visitors, it is for each NHS board to decide how best to plan and deliver services, including to meet the needs of its population.

We are leading the UK in developing a series of ground breaking Nursing and Midwifery Workload and Workforce Planning Tools that support evidence based decisions in relation to Nursing and Midwifery establishments. These tools are used to determine the number of nurses, including health visitors, or midwives needed for particular clinical areas through measurement of actual workload, as part of a broader approach that incorporates nurses' professional judgment and quality measures. The Workload and Workforce Planning tools have been mandated since April 2013 and we expect all NHS boards to use them to inform local nursing and midwifery workforce planning.

Work in this area is being progressed under the eHealth Strategy, one of the aims of which is to support people to communicate with the NHS in Scotland and manage their own health and wellbeing. Both GP IT systems used in Scotland now offer online appointment booking and ordering of repeat prescriptions. In addition, GP practice websites offer a range of services, such as online registration, downloading of key practice documents, feedback and complaints, and an array of health related information. Work in the next year will look to increase the uptake of current online services, and broaden the range of services offered, based on people's needs.

The Scottish Government has sought and received assurance from the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) that it continues to address sickness absence levels.

A key action point arising from the 2013 Annual Review was that SAS would make sustained progress towards the national HEAT sickness absence standard of 4%, in partnership with staff and their representatives.

From discussions on this matter at its mid-year review in November 2013, we are aware that the board has a number of initiatives underway, such as new occupational health arrangements to support staff and improve performance in this area.

The Scottish Government works closely with stakeholders, including NHS boards, Higher Education Institutions, Scottish Funding Council and Partnership bodies, to ensure an appropriate supply of registered midwives to meet future workforce requirements and to ensure a sustainable model of pre-registration and post-registration midwifery education provision.

The recommended intake to pre-registration midwifery programmes in 2013-14 academic year was increased by 40% to 140 places. We are working closely with stakeholders, including higher education institutions and Royal College of Midwives Scotland, to inform recommendations regarding intakes to pre-registration midwifery programmes in 2014-15 academic year.

<>As indicated in my answer to S4W-10514 on 7 November 2012, this is an important area for development and for the past 18 months the Scottish Health Council has been promoting and supporting the value of involving people and patients in primary care and in particular general practices. Its March 2013 report, Promoting, Supporting and Developing Public Involvement in Primary Care (available on its website at www.scottishhealthcouncil.org) estimates that at that point in time, 151 of Scotland’s 1,032 General practices had established Patient Participation Groups. Through its local office network, the Scottish Health Council continues to offer support to general practices using tools it has produced to improve or widen their involvement practice.

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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

We already collect data on the family nurse partnership workforce for national purposes, including alignment to the licensing agreement for the programme.

GP practices already have a significant role in health protection, prevention of ill health or deterioration in the condition, health promotion and health improvement issues, delivered through the The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2004, or The National Health Service (Primary Medical Services Section 17C Agreements) (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

GP Practices play an important role in public health management of single cases and outbreaks of infectious disease. They are the liaison between Public Health and the patient e.g. they help taking samples for laboratory analysis and communicating results, they may help in recruitment of patients for studies (as happened in Edinburgh for legionella studies), they manage public concern and potential cases in an outbreak, they assess, treat and vaccinate patients in a flu outbreak in nursing homes.

In particular this year there has been increased involvement of GPs as two entirely new immunisation programmes have been introduced, rotavirus for infants and shingles for 70 year olds and both of these are being given in primary care. Furthermore this year saw the first phase of childhood flu vaccination being rolled out with all two and three year olds being offered flu vaccination in primary care.

The Scottish Government is also undertaking a review of the Public Health Domain within the GMS Contract, in conjunction with Scottish General Practitioners Committee, to ensure it fits with NHS Scotland’s public health priorities.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the regulatory body for doctors in the UK and its purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine. All doctors have to be registered by the GMC to practise and the GMC has powers to take action on serious concerns which call into question a doctor’s fitness to practise.

Individual GP practices are also responsible for the provision of the premises from which they operate and directly accountable to their contracting health board for the services they provide. This includes ensuring their premises are suitable for the delivery of their services, including cleanliness, and sufficient to meet the needs of their patients. GP contractors must also co-operate fully with any reasonable inspection or review that the health board or another relevant statutory authority wishes to undertake, that may include random visits.

The Scottish Government commenced a rolling upgrade programme two years ago in anticipation of Windows XP becoming unsupported from April 2014. As of November 2012, 86% of devices have been upgraded and the exercise will be completed in February 2014.

An open source desktop assessment was conducted in early 2011 and concluded that there was still no suitably mature, scalable and secure alternative to the Microsoft Windows and Outlook products.