- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to direct more investment in the NHS towards technicians and equipment parts concerned with the treatment of cancer, given that equipment needs to be serviced and maintained.
Answer
The treatment of cancer is a top priority for the Scottish Executive and NHSScotland.
The Scottish Executive has invested heavily in more skilled staff and equipment to improve cancer services, including £87 million for the new West of Scotland Cancer Centre. The £25 million recurring additional investment from Cancer in Scotland has resulted in more than 300 additional staff and additional/new equipment to build capacity with many examples of specific reductions in waiting times and other important clinical quality improvements.
With some of the best treatment in the world, more and more Scots are living with and beating cancer. All of Scotland’s five cancer centres have new state of the art imaging, radiotherapy and other equipment. In addition, £125 million is invested over three years for new medical equipment across the country, including £33 million for new radiotherapy equipment and a 20% increase in capital investment for NHS boards.
Equipment is calibrated and serviced on a continual basis by specialist trained professionals, according to manufacturers’ recommendations and in accordance with safety legislation and national quality standards.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans, as part of targets to reduce cancer deaths, to develop a nationwide policy of retention of all cancer patients' records until five years after death and invest more resources in clerical and IT staff to update, computerise and access these records.
Answer
A working group of interested parties, including patients, is currently reviewing retention and destruction of all types of health records, and a national consultation on the
Retention and Disposal of Health Records is currently underway. Further information on the consultation is available at
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/current.
Investment in IT and associated support is being put in place including plans for further growth to meet requirements.
Cancer mortality in the under 75s in Scotland has reduced by 14.8% between 1995-2004. At this rate the target reduction of 20% by 2010 in this group will be met.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to decentralise cancer screening and treatment services in the west of Scotland, given that the east of Scotland has four centres and the west has one.
Answer
Decisions on where cancer treatment is provided are clinically based and are agreed between doctor and patient. As far as possible and dependent on the type of tumour and treatment requirements, arrangements are made to treat patients as close to home as possible.
Delivering for Health sets the direction for NHS services for the future with services delivered as locally as possible, when that can be done safely and sustainably, but with prompt access to specialised services when necessary.
The Scottish Executive and NHSScotland are constantly seeking to develop the service in line with patients’ needs, taking into account patient safety which is paramount. However, in some cases, treatment requirements are so highly specialised that they are available only in Cancer Centres e.g. radiotherapy and some forms of chemotherapy.
There are five cancer centres in Scotland in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. Outreach services and some treatments for cancer are also available in local hospitals.
There are six breast screening centres in Scotland in Glasgow, Irvine, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. To enable ease of access the Scottish Breast Screening Programme also operate 18 mobile units throughout the country.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to extend nationally monitoring of patients who have had mantle area radiotherapy, given that mantle radiation carries an increased risk of breast cancer.
Answer
Following a report from the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) about the evidence of an increased risk of breast cancer following supradiagphragmatic (mantle) radiotherapy for Hodgkins disease in young women, the Chief Medical Officers of the four UK Departments of Health instituted a UK-wide identification and notification exercise which commenced in 2003. This involved identifying, contacting and informing patients throughout the UK.
Letters and fact sheets were sent to identified patients’ general practitioners and consultants and a national announcement was made by the Department of Health in England in November 2003.
More than 300 women across Scotland were contacted as part of the exercise, some of whom elected to take up the invitation for advice and surveillance. Some women are also now of an age that they are called for screening by the Scottish Breast Screening Programme.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 2 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to monitor, with a view to curbing, environmental pollutants such as pesticides, herbicides and the use of antibiotics, additives and hormone treatments in the animal and plant food chain, in light of the statement by the UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer in its report, Breast Cancer – an Environmental Disease: The Case for Primary Prevention, that they are influential in causing a rise in the rate of breast cancer in women.
Answer
The report suggests that exposure to industrial chemicals and radiation are major causes of breast cancer. However, there is currently no compelling scientific evidence for the role of pollutants in breast-cancer risk. Evidence for a link between breast cancer and exposure to environmental pollutants is weak.
Scottish Executive policy is designed to ensure that all pesticides are safe to those who use them, to consumers of the treated produce and to the environment. Monitoring programmes are run annually, including to identify residue levels of pesticides in crops, food and feeding stuffs.
The Scottish Executive supports the overall objective of the proposed new European Union’s Chemicals Strategy REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), the aim of which is to protect human health and the environment. The Scottish and UK Governments want to develop a fast, efficient and workable process to test and screen chemicals and tackle those of most concern. It is hoped that the new regulatory regime will be a marked shift forward in terms of speeding up the regulation and authorisation process for new and existing chemicals.
Growth hormones are not permitted for feeding to animals in Scotland. The Feeding Stuffs (Scotland) Regulations 2000 will be replaced by The Feeding Stuffs (Scotland) 2005 Regulations. The new Regulations will ban the use of antibiotic growth promoters in Scotland from 1 January 2006.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 10 October 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the average salary is and what proportion of workers earns less than that amount.
Answer
The average salary can be estimated using both the mean gross salary and themedian gross salary for full-time employees
1 in Scotland. The mean gross salarywas £23,836 in 2004, with 61.1 per cent of full-time employees in Scotland earningless than this. This measure of earnings however is not preferred as it can be influencedby fluctuations in large incomes of high earners. The preferred measure is the medianannual salary which captures the point at which 50% of all full-time employees earnabove this level and 50% earn below this level. The median annual salary for full-timeemployees in Scotland was £20,603 in Scotland in 2004.
The official source for earnings estimates, used here, is the Annual Surveyof Hours and Earnings and is produced by the Office for National Statistics.
Note: 1. Employees on adult rates who have been in the same job for more thana year.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 22 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will end the diligence power of arresting the whole bank account of an actual or alleged debtor as part of its reform of personal bankruptcy and diligence law and, if so, when such a proposal will be presented.
Answer
The Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill, to be introduced during this session, will introduce a protected minimum balance when funds in bank and similar accounts are arrested. That balance will be exempt from arrestment, and therefore any amount in an account up to the cut off point can be used by the debtor. The cut off point below which amounts cannot be arrested will be linked to the protected amount for monthly paid debtors subject to earnings arrestment.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of (a) households and (b) individual citizens live on an annual income of (i) up to £5,000, (ii) £5,001 to £10,000, (iii) £10,001 to £20,000, (iv) £20,001 to £30,000, (v) £30,001 to £40,000, (vi) £40,001 to £50,000, (vii) £50,001 to £60,000, (viii) £60,001 to £80,000, (ix) £80,001 to £100,000, (x) £100,001 to £200,000, (xi) £200,001 to £300,000, (xii) £300,001 to £500,000, (xiii) £500,001 to £1 million and (xiv) more than £1 million.
Answer
The information requested is set out in the following two tables. The proportions in the tables are estimates derived from (a) the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and (b) the FRS’s Individual Incomes Analysis.
Due to the small sample sizes in the FRS in Scotland, the latest three years of data have been used to derive the proportions. However, the resulting sample was still too small to allow disaggregation for each of the higher income bands requested; the higher bands have therefore been grouped together.
(a) Total Annual Household Income: Households by Income Band
Scotland: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04
| Total Household Income | Proportion of Households |
| Up to £5,000 | 3% |
| £5,001 to £10,000 | 19% |
| £10,001 to £20,000 | 30% |
| £20,001 to £30,000 | 18% |
| £30,001 to £40,000 | 12% |
| £40,001 to £50,000 | 7% |
| £50,001 to £60,000 | 4% |
| £60,001 to £80,000 | 4% |
| £80,001 to £100,000 | 1% |
| £100,001 and over | 1% |
Source: Family Resources Survey for 2001-02, 2003-03 and 2003-04.
Note: Due to rounding figures may not sum exactly to 100%.
(b) Total Annual Individual Income1 - Adults by Income Band
Scotland: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04
| Total Individual Income | Proportion of Adults |
| Up to £5,000 | 21% |
| £5,001 to £10,000 | 26% |
| £10,001 to £20,000 | 31% |
| £20,001 to £30,000 | 13% |
| £30,001 to £40,000 | 5% |
| £40,001 to £50,000 | 3% |
| £50,001 and over | 2% |
Source: Family Resources Survey’s Individual Income Analysis for 2001-02, 2003-03 and 2003-04.
Note:
1. Excludes any income which is not accrued to the individual in their own right, and also excludes student loans, Social Fund loans and benefits in kind.
2. Due to rounding figures may not sum exactly to 100%.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 September 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tavish Scott on 22 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what efforts it is making to bring to a successful conclusion the current dispute between First Bus and the Transport and General Workers' Union in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Central Scotland.
Answer
The current dispute between First Bus and the Transport and General Workers’ Union in Edinburgh, the Lothians and central Scotland is a matter for the company and union involved and the Scottish Executive has no locus to intervene.
- Asked by: Tommy Sheridan, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Socialist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) pensioner households and (b) single pensioners live on an annual income of (i) up to £10,000, (ii) £10,001 to £15,000, (iii) £15,001 to £20,000, (ic) £20,001 to £30,000, (v) £30,001 to £50,000 and (vi) more than £50,000.
Answer
The information requested is set out in the following two tables. The figures in the tables are estimates derived from the Family Resources Survey (FRS).
Due to the small sample sizes in the FRS in Scotland, the latest three years of data have been used; the figures in the tables are therefore an average over the three years 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04. The resulting sample was still too small, however, to allow disaggregation for each of the higher income bands for single pensioners; the higher bands for this group have therefore been grouped together.
(a) Total Annual Household Income: Pensioner1 Households by Income Band
Scotland: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04
| Total Household Income | Average Number of Pensioner Households, Over Last 3 Years |
| up to £10,000 | 260,000 |
| £10,000 to £15,000 | 190,000 |
| £15,000 to £20,000 | 80,000 |
| £20,000 to £30,000 | 70,000 |
| £30,000 to £50,000 | 30,000 |
| over £50,000 | 10,000 |
Source: Family Resources Survey: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04.
Note: 1. A pensioner household is defined as either one pensioner living alone or a couple where at least one is a pensioner and the household does not contain any children.
(b) Total Annual Household Income: Single Pensioners by Income Band
Scotland: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04
| Total Household Income | Average Number of Single Pensioners Over Last 3 Years |
| up to £10,000 | 220,000 |
| £10,000 to £15,000 | 100,000 |
| £15,000 to £20,000 | 30,000 |
| over £20,000 | 20,000 |
Source: Family Resources Survey: 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04.
