Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government encourages the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service to work closely with the other UK blood services to facilitate continuous quality improvement and effective and efficient service delivery. These efforts are co-ordinated through the UK (Blood Services) Forum which involves the blood services in the four UK territories.

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) is participating in a joint tender for the provision of nucleic acid testing (NAT) of blood components for hepatitis C in England, Wales and Scotland. SNBTS has undertaken HIV NAT testing since 2002 and supply of this test will be part of any tendering exercise.

The Scottish Government has had regular discussions with the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service about future nucleic acid testing of blood components.

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service intends to award a tender to a supplier who can supply both hepatitis C and HIV nucleic acid testing assays to the necessary standards.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) is the source of expert advice and support to government, NHS, other organisations and the public on health protection issues in Scotland. Information, advice and guidance on Clostridium difficile and MRSA is available on the HPS website, part of which is a weekly electronic publication through which over 800 subscribers are sent notification of new content on the site. Making information available in this way ensures that new information reaches as wide an audience as possible as soon as it becomes available.

Since the introduction of the hand hygiene targets in January 2007 Health Protection Scotland (HPS) have collected and published the figures at an NHS board level.

The latest HPS quarterly report Compliance with Hand Hygiene Audit Report was published on Wednesday, 2 July 2008, and can be found at http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk.

I have been advised that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde followed the guidance set out in Annex 4 of the document Managing Incidents Presenting Actual or Potential Risks to the Public Health: Guidance on the Roles and Responsibilities of Incident Control Teams and that Health Protection Scotland were notified of the outbreak in accordance with the terms of the Watt Matrix adopted across NHS Scotland.

Health Protection Scotland provided the infection control team with expert advice and support throughout this outbreak and I was kept informed by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde on a daily basis of the condition and progress of the babies colonised with MRSA. None of the babies were a cause of concern and I am advised that standard infection control procedures were followed by staff at the hospital.

All incidents and outbreaks of infection are regrettable but I am satisfied that all appropriate precautions were taken by the hospital to deal with these MRSA cases and no action is therefore planned.

Scottish Government (SG) employees can receive assistance towards the purchase of spectacles where this is required for working with display screen equipment. This may involve an eye test. In 2008-09, 6 SG employees received support for eye tests. Records are not held about the number of SG employees who receive a free eye test through the publicly available scheme.

Information about the appropriate use of display screen equipment is given to SG staff as part of the induction process and is available through the SG intranet.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that this information is not recorded. However, the Scottish Ambulance Service has a Memorandum of Understanding with the British Red Cross which sets out a framework for responding to major incidents and major public events.

In addition, the British Red Cross supports the Scottish Ambulance Service in the provision of patient transport and as part of Community First Responder schemes. In respect of the latter role, all first responders have received training and have qualified as “First Persons on Scene”.

The Scottish Ambulance Service does not call upon the services of the St John Ambulance Service.

It is for each NHS board to decide on the clinical circumstances under which it will test babies for MRSA and clostridium difficile and data are not collected centrally. However, all NHS boards are required to provide Health Protection Scotland with monthly positive tests on Staph. aureus bacteraemia and clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) in patients aged 65 and over and these are collated and published in quarterly reports showing rates at NHS board level. The latest quarterly reports, which were published on Wednesday, 2 July 2008, can be found at:

http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk.