Chamber and committees

There are no plans to redirect999 emergency ambulance calls to NHS 24 – calls will continue to be answered bythe Scottish Ambulance Service’s emergency medical dispatch centres. Scottish AmbulanceService call handlers will continue to use the clinical algorithms that supportdecisions about the priority of the call and the nature of the response that isrequired.

The vast majority of emergencyambulance calls require an ambulance to be sent, but there are a number that donot. At present, a caller who does not require an ambulance may be asked to hangup and contact their own GP or NHS 24. In future, it will be possible for the calldetails to be passed electronically to NHS 24, to enable an appropriate advisorto call the patient back without the patient having to repeat the information thathe or she has already provided.

For the years 2004-05 and 2005-06the information is as follows:

The above figures include receiptsfrom the disposal of NHS assets including equipment, IT hardware etc. However, theoverwhelming majority of these receipts were from the sale of surplus property includingland.

the Scottish Executive is not aware of any senior staff in Health Department havinga career history with Serco.

Information about the careerhistory or personal interests of senior staff within NHSScotland is not held centrallyand is a matter for each NHS board.

In addition, in December I approvedthe development of the Lanarkshire Cancer Unit at Monklands which further adds tothe important role to be played by Monklands Hospital in the future delivery ofhealth care for the whole of Lanarkshire.

NHS Lanarkshire is now takingforward detailed planning to inform the development of clinical service models toensure the delivery of safe, sustainable and high quality services at Monklands.The services NHS Lanarkshire plans to deliver at Monklands Hospital are listed inthe following table.

(a) liberate them upon awritten undertaking, signed by them and certified by the officer, in terms ofwhich the person agrees to appear at a specified court at a specific time;

(b) liberate them withoutany such undertaking, or

(c) refuse to liberate them.

A person who is notliberated should be brought into court on the next day it sits after the day of the arrest. It is a matter for the police how they deal with individual cases.

The following table shows theexpenditure due under the contract on an annual basis broken down into financialyears. Payments have been made to Serco in accordance with all submitted/agreedinvoices.