Chamber and committees

The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 overhauls the current under-age drinking offences and increases the associated maximum penalties from a £1,000 fine to a £5,000 fine, or a three month jail sentence, or both. The 2005 act also emphasises that licensed premises should operate on a no-proof no-sale basis - where licensees are in any doubt about a person''s age they should refuse the sale. The act also introduced mandatory training for all staff serving alcohol and a qualification for premises managers. Both these measures ensure that staff are fully aware of the law regarding sales to persons under 18.

The Scottish Government has also put in place regulations to allow the police to carry out test purchasing of alcohol, where police forces send under-18s into licensed premises to attempt to purchase alcohol. A failure of a test purchase can lead to prosecution and action by the licensing board to suspend or revoke a licence.

Local authorities have the power to make byelaws to prohibit drinking in designated public places under provisions contained in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, subject to confirmation by the Scottish ministers. To date, 31 local authorities across Scotland have byelaws in place, covering over 480 towns and villages, and the built up areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Information on the average response times for emergency call-outs is not held centrally. With the passing by Parliament of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and the creation of a fire and rescue framework for Scotland, a new locally determined risk-assessed methodology for deploying fire authority resources was introduced; integrated risk management plans (IRMP).

Prior to the introduction of IRMP there were recommended standards of fire cover which originated from 1936 and were based on the characteristics of property and buildings in each area. The greater the density of buildings in an area, the greater the fire fighting resources that were provided. The effect of this was that, primarily, and for much of the time, fire service resources were targeted at protecting buildings (often unoccupied) rather than people. The previous recommended standards were also inflexible and didn''t allow for local discretion by fire and rescue boards to take account of local circumstances.

Until reporting year 2004-05, information on attendance times formed a performance monitoring measure recorded by Audit Scotland and is published on the Performance Information section of the Audit Scotland website, at the following web address:

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/fire/.

Data on specific selected healthcare associated infections (HAIs) were only routinely collected following the issue of Health Department Letter HDL (2001) 57 in 2001, and the information sought is not held in the format requested. It is also the case that there are no accurate or complete historical records available in Scotland to indicate whether an HAI (as opposed to a specific individual organism) was the cause of death, or whether the deceased contracted the infection in hospital.

However, a range of reports on key infections are routinely published in Scotland which help to inform the drive and the focus of our HAI agenda. These are: quarterly rates of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemias (last published on 1 April 2008); quarterly rates of Clostridium difficile (last published on 2 April 2008) and annual rates of Surgical Site Infections (last published on 5 March 2008). All publications are available from the Health Protection Scotland (HPS) website:

http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/pubs/index.aspx.

In addition, the thorough Scottish HAI National Point Prevalence Survey published on 11 July 2007 provides detailed information on the estimated prevalence of HAI in Scotland and of the specific types of HAI in adult inpatients in acute and community hospitals in Scotland. The findings in the survey provided the basis of our new HAI Delivery Plan, which was put in place on 1 April. The survey is also available from the HPS website.

The Scottish Government publishes detailed statistics on collection rates each year. The latest publication can be seen at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/06/22095121/0.

This data is at council level and includes the percentages for each council. The billed and collected amounts are published at the Scotland level.

The information requested is given in the following tables. The figures are compiled on the basis of year of registration rather than year of occurrence. A breakdown of this information by local authority area is not held centrally by the Scottish Executive.

Year	Age
	Under Six months	6-8 Months	9-11 Months	12-17 Months	18-23 Months
1967	277	713	289	184	76
1968	308	700	327	207	65
1969	315	700	308	222	81
1970	244	594	274	175	78
1971	185	583	269	154	64
1972	195	504	208	132	63
1973	216	520	195	134	69
1974	167	382	171	124	44
1975	135	370	182	78	58
1976	102	319	164	97	32
1977	89	327	135	87	36
1978	84	211	102	63	20
1979	36	188	124	55	28
1980	70	206	101	58	32
1981	69	178	71	53	30
1982	91	179	60	36	24
1983	85	151	58	38	21
1984	70	120	39	33	16
1985	51	92	55	42	19
1986	56	64	43	45	22
1987	33	62	59	54	27
1988	35	48	49	49	20
1989	16	55	42	60	23
1990	21	42	49	34	15
1991	9	54	38	39	19
1992	4	41	26	36	50
1993	10	31	31	29	17
1994	3	32	26	23	13
1995	1	22	17	26	18
1996	2	19	28	19	12
1997	-	14	12	20	16
1998	1	8	7	16	14
1999	4	12	18	20	11
2000	1	7	16	16	23
2001	1	5	12	24	20
2002	1	3	9	19	10
2003	3	7	15	20	19
2004	4	5	12	33	15
2005	1	7	10	25	26
2006	3	4	9	20	22

 

Year	Age
	2 Years	3-4 Years	5-9 Years	10-14 Years	15 Years and Over	Not Specified
1967	96	152	211	88	76	-
1968	76	160	199	79	53	-
1969	110	159	265	86	43	-
1970	120	164	272	102	34	-
1971	90	193	272	70	23	1
1972	74	152	247	85	32	-
1973	84	228	346	106	28	-
1974	89	206	326	135	35	-
1975	81	222	367	179	34	-
1976	80	205	408	189	45	-
1977	79	193	425	202	60	-
1978	46	176	367	254	55	-
1979	58	149	280	181	59	-
1980	49	135	434	261	66	-
1981	36	99	316	224	54	-
1982	46	144	343	236	63	-
1983	43	126	324	246	80	-
1984	39	104	281	220	61	-
1985	37	98	268	205	82	-
1986	31	120	350	266	78	-
1987	62	123	322	223	88	-
1988	42	99	283	171	72	-
1989	31	103	262	196	62	1
1990	59	129	276	150	41	5
1991	51	112	288	159	48	-
1992	41	128	308	151	38	-
1993	49	108	312	186	38	-
1994	31	97	257	159	22	2
1995	27	114	232	145	33	-
1996	28	72	231	146	28	-
1997	29	72	192	88	28	-
1998	23	73	198	128	22	-
1999	36	68	176	117	27	-
2000	26	75	123	85	19	-
2001	50	82	161	92	21	-
2002	49	65	130	73	26	-
2003	39	75	170	88	32	-
2004	33	63	143	67	18	-
2005	37	74	155	81	23	-
2006	40	71	150	73	26	-

 

The data system used by the Scottish Ambulance Service to capture information on complaints does not include a field which distinguishes between emergency and non-emergency activity.

The following table gives details of the numbers of emergency response and non-emergency response vehicles in the Scottish Ambulance Service''s fleet in each year since 2001-02.

	Vehicle Type	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
East Central	Emergency	78	83	83	86	88	86	88
	Non-Emergency	116	116	116	121	122	118	116
	Others	34	36	36	40	42	38	38
	Total	228	235	235	247	252	242	242
North East	Emergency	58	58	59	63	68	62	62
	Non-Emergency	52	52	52	57	57	55	62
	Others	23	26	26	28	28	21	22
	Total	133	136	137	148	153	138	146
North West	Emergency	65	65	65	66	70	68	69
	Non-Emergency	24	24	25	29	29	32	28
	Others	19	20	21	24	24	22	23
	Total	108	109	111	119	123	122	120
South East	Emergency	69	70	70	69	70	68	70
	Non-Emergency	79	79	79	85	85	85	90
	Others	60	62	62	68	68	58	61
	Total	208	211	211	222	223	211	221
South West	Emergency	115	115	115	133	133	121	121
	Non-Emergency	118	117	119	127	128	124	133
	Others	47	49	49	55	55	48	48
	Total	280	281	283	315	316	293	302
West Central	Emergency	97	108	110	111	114	125	118
	Non-Emergency	129	129	129	157	157	157	155
	Others	46	50	50	51	51	49	49
	Total	272	287	289	319	322	331	322
Scotland	Total	1,245	1,276	1,283	1,386	1,406	1,354	1,353*

Information supplied by the Scottish Ambulance Service.

Note: *2007-08 figures vary from those provided in the answer to question S3W-10471 on 10 March 2008, as some vehicles are moved between divisions and are disposed of and replaced. 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/webapp/wa.search.

The following table gives details of the number of drivers of both emergency and non-emergency vehicles employed by the Scottish Ambulance Service in each year since 1997, also broken down by Ambulance Service division. In the case of the emergency services virtually all of these staff are either paramedics or technicians.

		1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
North East	Emergency	129	134	135	144	151	163	182
	Non-Emergency	16	16	17	20	22	27	37
North and West	Emergency	146	151	154	165	171	176	188
	Non-Emergency	13	13	16	16	18	19	20
East Central	Emergency	244	257	272	277	287	304	327
	Non-Emergency	61	66	75	85	96	114	133
West Central	Emergency	283	293	324	334	360	383	427
	Non-Emergency	82	85	87	89	97	116	144
South East	Emergency	196	203	209	217	224	235	262
	Non-Emergency	36	37	39	42	48	59	80
South West	Emergency	302	309	317	325	329	350	385
	Non-Emergency	51	56	62	69	72	85	102
Scotland	Emergency	1,300	1,347	1,411	1,462	1,522	1,611	1,771
	Non-Emergency	259	273	296	321	353	420	516

 

		2004	2005	2006	2007
North East	Emergency	191	201	222	230
	Non-Emergency	43	49	57	65
North and West	Emergency	194	202	209	215
	Non-Emergency	22	25	29	36
East Central	Emergency	332	357	377	392
	Non-Emergency	147	156	156	187
West Central	Emergency	442	465	483	536
	Non-Emergency	158	186	207	267
South East	Emergency	269	292	302	325
	Non-Emergency	85	95	101	122
South West	Emergency	410	439	452	461
	Non-Emergency	117	134	160	188
Scotland	Emergency	1,838	1,956	2,045	2,159
	Non-Emergency	572	645	710	865

 

Information provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The focus of all organ donation advertising and publicity campaigns in recent years has been to encourage people in Scotland to add their name to the NHS organ donor register. This counts as a form of authorisation in terms of the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006, which is intended to make sure that the wishes people express in life are acted on after their death. It is also important that people let their nearest relatives know their wishes.

The following table gives details of the average response time for emergency call-outs in each year since 2003-04 broken down by Scottish Ambulance Service Division. 2003-04 was the first year during which priority-based dispatch was fully operational; figures for the earlier years are not comparable.

SAS Division	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
East Central	8.43	8.16	7.97	8.77	8.50
North and West	9.06	9.51	9.71	9.21	8.89
North East	8.27	7.59	7.37	7.45	7.12
South East	8.21	8.13	7.96	8.92	8.53
South West	9.71	9.18	8.70	8.54	8.22
West Central	8.93	9.21	8.93	9.48	7.89
Scotland*	8.6	8.6	8.4	8.9	8.2

Information provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service.

Note: *Figure covers mainland Scotland only “ Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles not subject to the same performance measures.