Chamber and committees

Binge drinking is defined inthe Executive’s Plan for Action on Alcohol Problems as “drinking an excessive amounton any one occasion”. The Scottish Health Survey defines binge drinking for adultsas drinking more than twice the recommended daily benchmark on a person’s heaviestdrinking day (more than eight units for men and more than six units for women).For young people under 16, consumption of five or more drinks on a single occasionhas been used as a measure of binge drinking.

Adults

Table 1.9 of the ScottishHealth Survey report, volume 2, provides information on units consumed by adultson the heaviest drinking day in the past week, broken down by age and gender for1998 and 2003. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/76169/0019729.pdfAnalysis of the Scottish HealthSurvey by NHS board area is available on the Scottish Executive website via thefollowing link http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/25145024/50256.

The table entitled Daily Drinkingprovides similar information for units consumed by men and women on the heaviestdrinking day in the past week. Due to the small sample sizes involved, it is notpossible to break this information down by age.

Young People

Information on the drinking habitsof young people is provided by the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle andSubstance use Survey (SALSUS). A question on consumption of five or more drinkson a single occasion was first included in 2002.

Table 3.17, provides informationon the frequency of drinking five or more drinks on the same occasion in the last30 days, by age and gender for 2002 and 2004.

http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/local/SALSUS_2004full.pdf.

The most recent breakdown ofthis information at NHS board level is for 2002:

http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/abstracts/salsusdocs_hb.htm.

The information requestedcould only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Alternative information onhealth and mortality indicators at low level geographies can be found at the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics website www.sns.gov.ukand via the Community Profiles section of the Scottish Public HealthObservatory (SCOTPHO) website www.scotpho.org.uk.

The official source of thenumber of people registered unemployed is the claimant count i.e. people claiming jobseekers allowance.

I have placed tables showingthe percentage of people registered unemployed by age-band and parliamentaryconstituency in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 41039).However please note data forparliamentary constituencies are only available from 1996 onwards. Also data arenot available for the exact age-bands specified but data have been provided forpeople aged (a) 16-24 (b) 25-34 (c)35-44 (d) 45-54 and (e) 55 plus.

This information is not heldcentrally.

The ministerial healthcare associatedinfection task force has commissioned a detailed survey of HAIs (the national pointprevalence survey), which will include information on financial and resourceimplications based on Scottish data for the first time. The report is due forpublication in mid 2007.

The Scottish Executive putin place a contract for Public Relations (PR) on the August 1, 2004. Prior tothis, all PR work was sub contracted by the creative advertising agencies onthe Scottish Executive contract. The following PR companies have been hired bythe Scottish Executive since the August 1, 2004: Barkers, IAS SMARTS (formerlyCitigate SMARTS), Consolidated Communications and The Big Partnership.

The specific informationrequested is not available centrally.

The following table shows registerednursing and midwifery staff working in NHS Scotland by age. Latest available datais at 30 September 2005. Centrally held information covers registered (qualified)nursing and midwifery staff working in NHS Scotland, however does not include registerednurses working in care homes or those not currently practising.

Headcount as at 30 September 2005

	60-64	65-68	60	70+
NHS Scotland	715	32	2	2

 

Further information on the statistics,including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation,is given in the Background Notes document on the Workforce Statistics homepage atwww.isdscotland.org/workforce.

The information requested isgiven in the following table. Latest available figures are at 30 September 2005.

Age	60-64	65-68	69	70+
NHS Scotland	1,800	97	4	4

 

Further information on the statistics,including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation,is given in the Background Notes document on the Workforce Statistics homepage atwww.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Life expectancy figures are notavailable for local authority wards because their population is too small to allowaccurate estimates to be made.

Currently, life expectancy atbirth is calculated at local authority and NHS board area. Information for the period1981-83 to 2003-05 is available from the General Register Office for Scotland websitethrough the following link:

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/library/life-expectancy/le2003-05/index.html.

The Scottish Executive does nothold information on admissions. Information on the number of discharges has beenplaced in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 41030).

Table 1 shows the number of dischargesfrom Scottish general/acute hospitals, of children under the age of 18 with an alcohol-relateddiagnosis, broken down by hospital, for 1997-98 to 2004-05.

Table 2 shows alcohol-related discharges from mental and psychiatrichospitals for children under the age of 18 years, from 1997-98 to 2002-03 (the mostrecent year for which complete data is available).