Chamber and committees

Health boards and NHS trusts are responsible for the training and continuing development of their staff. The policy framework for learning in NHSScotland is provided by Learning Together, the Education, Training and Lifelong Learning Strategy.Additional funding for certain primary health care workers is available from a variety of sources, funded both directly and indirectly by the Scottish Executive. The information for 2001-02 is shown in the following tables.

Source	2001-02
Via the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (SCPMDE)
Doctors	£15,994,000
Dentists	£3,871,000
Via Post Qualification Education Board for National Health Service Pharmacists in Scotland (PQEB)
Pharmacists	£247,000
Total	£20,112,000

Scottish Executive	Programme	2001-02
Doctors	Post Graduate Education Allowance (PGEA)	£9,800,000
	Reimbursement of Expenses for Principals on Study Leave	£209,000
	Locum allowances for single handed GPs in remote and rural areas attending educational courses	£11,000
Dentists	Continual professional development allowances (CPDA)* for registered dental practitioners	£192,473
Professions complementary to Dentistry (PCD)	Additional training and education	£1.6 million over three years
Nurses	Training to support recommendations of Nursing for Health	£2,900,000
Practice Managers	Competency Framework (Phoenix agenda)	£40,000
Total		£14,752,473

Note:*Enhanced allowances are available to those dentists operating from remote areasSCPMDE and PQEB, along with the National Board for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting for Scotland (NBS), became part of NHS Education for Scotland (NES) on 1 April. NES will promote a multi-disciplinary approach to training and education of healthcare staff and co-ordinate and oversee educational support.

Information on the number of emergency admissions to Glasgow acute hospitals with an alcohol-related diagnosis from 1997 to 2001 is given in the table. Local action to tackle alcohol problems is a matter for local agencies to address.Emergency admissions to acute hospitals in Glasgow from 1997 to 2001

Year	Number
1997-98	7,766
1998-99	7,521
1999-2000	7,787
2000-01	7,748

Source: Scottish Morbidity Record, SMR01.Notes:Alcohol-related conditions are defined using the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 10^th Revision (ICD10).The recording of alcohol problems may vary from hospital to hospital. Where an alcohol problems is suspected but unconfirmed it may not be recorded.

Action is being taken on a number of fronts:We recently announced that the Scottish Executive Health Department would fund additional student places in 2002-03 available to Allied Health Professions (AHPs) including speech and language Therapists. This is in addition to the 30 additional student places being funded by SHEFC in 2002-03.We will be hosting a careers convention in the autumn to promote the AHPs and assist in recruitment and retention. This will be targeted at schoolchildren and those who might want to return to their profession.In addition a new Professional Officer for the AHPs will be appointed to take forward Building on Success - Future Directions for the Allied Health Professions, the first ever action plan for the Allied Health Professions in Scotland which sets out a programme of work to address recruitment and retention issues for this group.The Executive will also be issuing an action plan for workforce development which will set a critical path for creating a robust workforce development function which integrates workforce planning with service planning across all services in NHSScotland.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-25774 on 24 May 2002.

GPs receive payments for chronic disease management of asthma and diabetes. A very high percentage of GPs provide Chronic Disease Management (CDM) programmes for patients suffering from these conditions. The latest figures available show a high success rate of 95.3% of GPs in Scotland providing both CDM programmes.

The GP Statement of Fees and Allowances for providing Chronic Disease Management for asthma patients requires that "any health professional involved in the care of patients in the programme should be appropriately trained in the management of asthma". Ninety-five point eight per cent of GP principals qualify for chronic disease management payments for asthma. GP terms of service require that they ensure that any other health professional to whom they refer or delegate the care of a patient is appropriately trained to provide the treatment.There are no plans to require GPs to provide practice nurses with additional asthma training.

On 18 June we published research on the current services available to young people leaving care in Scotland. This research shows these services are currently variable across the country. As a result we are focusing on improving existing services before introducing fully the new arrangements. The related measures to withdraw Department of Work and Pensions benefits for some young people leaving care have been delayed until April 2004.

The provision of urban light rail schemes is considered a local transport issue and as such is the responsibility of local authorities or, in the case of the Strathclyde area, Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority. To date, the City of Edinburgh Council is the only authority to have expressed strong interest in developing a light rail network for the city. As part of the Executive's capital investment support for major public transport projects, we have made awards to the council from the Public Transport Fund and Integrated Transport Fund. This amounts to £6.5 million to advance the proposed development of a tram scheme for North Edinburgh and £6 million for a preparatory study into the proposed light rail system for West Edinburgh.

South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust has been actively seeking to recruit and retain nurses through a number of initiatives including:

• Advertising in the nursing and other press.
• Targeting newly qualified nurses expected to graduate from September 2002.
• As part of the centrally funded Facing the Future initiative, running a return to practice programme supporting 12 places with the first six starting in September. Funding will cover course costs, travel expenses, books and childcare.
• In addition, the Scottish Executive are targeting all lapsed nursing registrants in the Glasgow area inviting them to return to practice and gathering information on reasons for leaving and what would encourage them to return.

Also, the trust will be exhibiting at the Nursing Times Live exhibition at the SECC in Glasgow on 10-11 July 2002

Tackling health inequalities has been set as a priority for the NHS and, following the Arbuthnott Review, we have reformed the way funding is distributed so the influence of deprivation and remoteness on health care needs is fully recognised for the first time. Also, we are focusing on inequalities in addressing the upstream determinants of health, through demonstration projects, healthy living centres, the Health Improvement Fund and wider work on lifestyles and life circumstances. All this will contribute to our continued push to tackle health inequalities.