Chamber and committees

The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) recently ran a Shared Responsibility campaign aimed at changing social attitudes towards cocaine by highlighting the environmental impact that cocaine use in Scotland has on communities in Columbia. The campaign was targeted at the whole population, including families, workers and students.

The government supports the SCDEA to run a series of concert style events, in May each year, which are targeted at P7 school children to promote positive life choices and give messages about the dangers of substance misuse and the consequences of their use.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21864 on 23 March 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Reliable information about the drug using population is key in the development of policy and practice. The Information Services Division of NHS Scotland collates information about individuals entering drug treatment services. Of those, it identifies people in full-time education and training, although this is a broader category than students alone. Obtaining prevalence and consumption estimates for cocaine use is especially difficult, however, because users do not often come into contact with services. In the future, we will be exploring how to improve data collection in relation to psychostimulants.

The number of dietetic students who graduated in the last two academic years are set out in the following table:

Higher Education Institution	2007-08		2008-09
	Undergraduate	Postgraduate	Undergraduate	Postgraduate
Robert Gordon University	26	-	28	-
Queen Margaret University	23	11	17	13
Glasgow Caledonian University	18	11	11	10

 

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21668 on 23 March 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The police force projection study was published on 18 March 2009 and is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/public-safety/Police/facts/Policing-Capacity/pfps.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21668 on 23 March 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Yes, the Scottish Government is aware of a lack of available clinical placements for dietetics students. A range of actions are in hand to identify solutions to this issue.

The Chief Health Professions Officer (CHPO) at the Scottish Government has discussed the issues with the NHS Chairs and Chief Executives who agreed to take action within their individual board areas. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has also reinforced the scale of the current situation with NHS Chief Executives. NES and the higher education institutions (HEIs) that provide dietetic programmes are also working with NHS boards to increase the number of available placements. NES is also leading work to develop a Memorandum of Understanding between HEIs and NHS boards for the provision of clinical placements for health professions students, including dietetics.

The Dietetic Alliance has recently written to each NHS board chief executive detailing the shortfall of placements in their NHS board area and asking them to take immediate action.

I can reassure you that progress is being made and that additional clinical placements for dietetics students are being identified by NHS boards.

Measuring the impact of the wide range of initiatives that we are supporting is a key aspect of our efforts to prevent and reduce knife carrying in Scotland. In order to ensure that the education based initiatives have a positive impact, our education advisor - a head teacher currently seconded to the Scottish Government to advise us on violence reduction initiatives - is working with Learning Teaching Scotland to develop the criteria to measure the initiatives'' impact. As part of this process, consideration will be given to what historic and future information should be collated.

We are also working with the national Violence Reduction Unit to put in place arrangements to evaluate the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) project “ the groundbreaking initiative that is being delivered in Glasgow to tackle gang violence.

The NHS is not responsible for setting quotas for the numbers of dietetics student placements. However, the NHS is working in partnership with higher education institutions to identify increased placement opportunities for dietetic students in training.

Following the decision of the British Dietetic Association to withdraw from the allocation of clinical placements for dietetics students, a Scottish Stakeholder Partnership (SSP), including higher education, NHS placement providers, NHS dietetics managers, and NHS Education for Scotland was created to oversee practice placement and work towards self-sufficiency in Scotland. The SSP agreed to a level of placement that equated to approximately six weeks of placement provision per dietitian (whole-time equivalent).

Although progress has been made and dietetics students have been able to take up increased numbers of placements made available in Scotland, NHS dietetic services continue to work towards self-sufficiency for placements in Scotland.