- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is considering adopting nucleic acid testing for all blood donations as its standard test to meet all statutory and regulatory requirements and what the reasons are for its position on the matter.
Answer
It is not possible for the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service to introduce nucleic acid testing as its “standard” test because the UK Blood Safety and Quality Regulations require an antibody test for HIV and hepatitis C to be performed on each donation as the “standard” test.
SNBTS use nucleic acid testing as an additional test to improve the safety of the Scottish blood supply.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers nucleic acid testing of blood donations to be a higher standard of test than a serological test.
Answer
Nucleic acid detection of viruses in blood, in general, detects positive donations at an earlier stage after the infective episode than antibody or antigen tests. For HIV, for example, a nucleic acid test in general becomes positive after about 11 days after exposure whereas for the current HIV anti-body test this is around 21 days after exposure.
The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service introduced nucleic acid testing for HIV in November 2002 as an additional test to improve the safety of the Scottish blood supply.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is satisfied that only specifying a requirement to test for hepatitis C in its invitation to tender for its provision of nucleic acid blood testing does not constitute a lowering of standards, given that current nucleic acid testing currently also specifies a requirement to test for HIV.
Answer
The Scottish Government supports the commitment of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service to offering a combined nucleic acid test for hepatitis C and HIV.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on why the current invitation to tender for the provision of nucleic acid testing, which caters for the national blood services in England and Wales and Scotland, only specifies a requirement to test for the presence of hepatitis C.
Answer
The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service is committed to continuing to carry out HIV nucleic acid testing (NAT) on all donations. It has indicated that it would only consider being a party to this tender if HIV NAT were also offered as part of a combined test.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that adopting a nucleic acid testing system as its standard test regime would constitute reasonable grounds for the relevant bodies to reassess the current blanket ban on gay men donating blood.
Answer
Men who have had sex with men, and who fail to acknowledge this at a blood donation session, have consistently the highest incidence of being HIV positive. This is the case with or without the implementation of nucleic acid testing. Securing the safety of the national blood supply in Scotland is a major priority. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service follows strict United Kingdom and European rules and regulations when collecting and processing blood to make sure it supplies the NHS in Scotland with the safest possible blood. The regulations are monitored and reviewed on a regular basis by medical and scientific experts. We believe it is important to accept this medical and scientific advice.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has made to the UK Government on the issue of the removal from the Medical Act 1983 of the requirement for pre-registration doctors to be resident at the hospital where they are working.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has made no representations to the UK Government on the issue of the removal from the Medical Act 1983 of the requirement for pre-registration doctors to be resident at the hospital where they are working.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 3 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will commit to holding discussions with doctors’ representatives on the issue of the removal from the Medical Act 1983 of the requirement for pre-registration doctors to be resident at the hospital where they are working.
Answer
There are well established mechanisms, both in Scotland and at UK level for discussing junior doctors pay, terms and conditions. It is of course open to the BMA to raise any matters of concern to their members through these mechanisms.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive on what basis the £25 million to tackle alcohol misuse, announced on 20 March 2008, was allocated to individual NHS boards.
Answer
The £25 million was allocated using the formula for NHS boards' general financial allocations for 2008-09, with an additional weighting factor applied to take account of prevalence of hazardous, harmful and dependent drinkers.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers the prevalence of alcohol misuse in an NHS board area to be the most important criterion in determining the allocation of funding to tackle alcohol abuse.
Answer
Prevalence is one of a number of factors relevant to determining allocation of funding for tackling alcohol misuse. Other factors, including deprivation, are included in the formula used for NHS boards' general financial allocations.
- Asked by: Ross Finnie, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions were held with NHS boards prior to the allocation of the £25 million to tackle alcohol misuse, announced on 20 March 2008.
Answer
We wrote to NHS boards in November 2007 explaining that subject to parliamentary approval of the draft budget, the majority of the £85 million increase in funding for tackling alcohol misuse would be allocated directly to NHS boards to increase access to early intervention, treatment, and for prevention activity.
