Chamber and committees

As of 4 February 2008, the number of people in possession of a National Entitlement Card to access Scotland-Wide Free Bus Travel for Older and Disabled People on the grounds of being 60 years or over is as follows.

Aberdeen City Council area “ 49,590

Aberdeenshire Council area “ 38,062

Angus Council area “ 22,268.

The Scottish Government has never endorsed use of this specific figure as a trigger for consideration of a school's future and notes the statement by the Chair of the Accounts Commission in a letter dated 24 January 2007 to the then Convener of the Scottish Parliament's Education Committee that at no time has the Accounts Commission or Audit Scotland said that occupancy levels alone should determine what councils do (in relation to a school's future) or that an occupancy level of below 60% should automatically trigger a school's closure. A copy of the letter is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 44922).

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I will ask its chief executive to write to you in this regard.

Using data supplied by the Health Professions Council (HPC), our best estimate (rounded to the nearest 10) for the number of occupational therapists who are registered and who are known to be working in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Angus in 2007 are as follows:

Aberdeen City - 130 occupational therapists

Aberdeenshire - 60 occupational therapists

Angus - 30 occupational therapists.

The HPC were unable to provide historical data for the years 2002 to 2006.

The above figures should be seen as estimates as the HPC have not recorded the workplace for all registered occupational therapists in Scotland. Therefore, the above figures could possibly be under-estimated.

Also, the above estimates are based on the postcode district (i.e. the first part of the postcode) of the registered occupational therapist's workplace. As the same postcode district could be spread across more than one local authority area, occupational therapists have been assigned to the local authority that accounted for the highest number of individual postcodes within each postcode district.

Better Health, Better Care confirms that it is a key Government priority to tackle health inequalities.

We are delivering the Keep Well programme, which anticipates preventable ill-health by strengthening and enhancing primary care services in the most deprived areas of Scotland, including parts of Aberdeen.

Well North, an extension of the Keep Well approach adapted to remote and rural areas, is being applied through six projects across the North of Scotland, including Dufftown.

The Ministerial Task Force is looking at the wider factors underlying health inequalities and will action these when it reports in May.

Alongside the clear care incentive the GP contract already provides financial encouragement for Practitioners to undertake mental health assessments for those who have a particular physical long term condition and have symptoms of, or are at risk, of developing, mental ill health.

Additional resources provided through the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme also helps support enhanced services to carers, with routine screening and monitoring of appropriate health and social care needs, including mental health.

Those not seen by their GP in the previous three years and  those over 75 not seen in the preceding year can request a check up which if appropriate can explore mental health issues.

The new NHS dementia HEAT target effective from April this year has been specifically designed to promote and support early identification of dementia.

Choose Life is Scotland''s national suicide prevention strategy and action plan, and suicide prevention is a cornerstone of the Scottish Government''s action on population mental health improvement.

A key part of Choose Life''s action is raising awareness of suicide prevention both nationally and in a range of local settings, including schools and workplaces. This action includes: delivering training programmes; distributing awareness-raising materials; developing workplace guidelines on promoting positive mental health, and providing counselling and signposting to appropriate services. Full details are available at www.chooselife.net.

Using data supplied by the Health Professions Council (HPC), our best estimate (rounded to the nearest 10) for the number of occupational therapists who are registered and who are known to be working in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Angus are as follows:

Aberdeen City - 130 occupational therapists

Aberdeenshire - 60 occupational therapists

Angus - 30 occupational therapists.

The above figures should be seen as estimates as the HPC do not have recorded the workplace for all registered occupational therapists in Scotland. Therefore, the above figures could possibly be under-estimated.

Also, the above estimates are based on the postcode district (i.e. the first part of the postcode) of the registered occupational therapist''s workplace. As the same postcode district could be spread across more than one local authority area, occupational therapists have been assigned to the local authority that accounted for the highest number of individual postcodes within each postcode district.

Information on the prevalence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes at NHS board level is available from the annual Scottish Diabetes Survey. First published in 2001, the Survey includes data from primary and secondary care and is currently the most comprehensive source of information on diabetes in Scotland. The surveys can be found on the Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) website:

www.scotpho.org.uk/home/Healthwellbeinganddisease/Diabetes/diabetes_keypoints.asp.

The 2006 survey will be available on the site very shortly.

The Scottish Public Health website also provides a guide to further sources of information on diabetes in Scotland, under the Health, Wellbeing and Disease tab.

The number of social care workers registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Angus for each year from 2002 to 2007 are presented below.

Local Authority	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Aberdeen City	0	0	2	344	443	531
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	242	310	382
Angus	0	0	0	145	184	212