Chamber and committees

The information requestedis not available centrally.

National estimatescan be given, based on the number of patients seen in general practices participatingin Practice Team Information, for the proportion of the population who consult andthe number of patients seen at least once during a given year for ADHD (includingattention deficit disorder), in the year ending  31 March 2006:

Deprivation Category (SIMD)	Number of People Consulting Per 100,000 Population Per Year	Estimated Number of Patients who Consulted at Least Once
1 (least deprived)	13.1	150
2	17.3	200
3	32.2	350
4	26.2	300
5 (most deprived)	36.9	400
Scotland	25.2	1,350

Note: Estimated numbersof patients are rounded to the nearest 50. Total figures may not add up to the sumof the parts due to rounding.

ADHD, and also ADD,is relatively rare and therefore not many patients are recorded within PTI withthese conditions and further subdivision of a relatively rare condition into evensmaller numbers and the resulting estimates must be treated as approximate.

The Scottish Indexof Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is used here as a proxy for socio-economic group.

The information requestedis not available centrally.

National estimatescan be given, based on the number of patients seen in general practices participatingin Practice Team Information, for the proportion of the population who consult eachyear and the number of patients seen at least once during a given year for ADHD(including attention deficit disorder):

Year	Number of People Consulting Per 100,000 Population Per Year	Estimated Number of Patients who Consulted at Least Once
2003-04	26.1	1,400
2004-05	29.6	1,600
2005-06	25.2	1,350

Notes: Estimated numbersof patients are rounded to the nearest 50.

The available informationis shown in the following table.

Assaults onPolice Officers and Staff, 1994 and 1995-96 to 2006-07

	Central	Dumfries and Galloway	Fife	Grampian1	Lothian and Borders	Northern2	Strathclyde	Tayside	All Scotland
19943	210	149	200	427	328	216	7,736	496	9,762
1995-963	262	174	233	485	373	188	8,025	322	10,062
1996-973	204	112	233	unknown	191	190	8,892	330	-
1997-98	241	86	257	259	182	202	8,619	330	10,176
1998-99	234	47	55	172	276	194	8,970	18	9,966
1999-2000	267	14	165	68	315	215	8,713	286	10,043
2000-01	262	11	222	279	320	223	6,670	272	8,259
2001-01	404	111	57	76	331	236	7,045	14	8,274
200203	410	178	381	241	291	249	7,506	117	9,373
2003-04	873	448	58	317	42	52	unknown	165	-
2004-05	934	398	357	unknown	217	284	unknown	185	-
2005-06	935	430	35	unknown	251	222	10,029	17	-
2006-074	941	557	42	69	246	195	10,841	118	13,009

Source: HerMajesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s Annual Statistical Returns from policeforces.

Notes:

1. Grampian data onassaults on police staff is incomplete.

2. No data on assaultson police staff included in Northern data.

3. For these years,figures for all forces are for assaults on police officers only.

4. 2006-07 data isprovisional.

Suicide preventionis a key aim of the Scottish Government’s action to improve mental health and wellbeing.The main delivery vehicle for this is Choose Life, the National Strategy and ActionPlan to Prevent Suicide. One of the priority groups for action is young people,especially young men. Through Choose Life there is now an identified suicide preventioncoordinator in every local authority area in Scotland, targeting suicide preventionaction in ways tailored to local needs and circumstances.

Nationally, throughChoose Life we have introduced suicide prevention training, which is being rolledout across Scotland. Over 11,500 people in community and publicservice settings have been trained in suicide intervention and risk management skillsin the last three years. We are also developing suicide prevention training andrisk assessment training for frontline staff in mental health services, in primarycare and in accident and emergency services.

On 10 September 2007 I launched Choose Life’s latest phase of campaign activity,“Talk. Listen. Save a Life.” This awareness-raising action highlights the importanceof encouraging people to be more open about their and other people’s feelings andworries.

The Breathing Spacetelephone advice line helps to underpin related action on suicide prevention. Openfrom 6pm to 2am nightly, Breathing Space provides free and confidential advice andsignposting to people experiencing low mood, depression and anxiety. It is availableto all but is particularly targeted at young men because of the increases in suicidenumbers in this group in recent decades. Breathing Space currently handles around3,000 calls per month and is currently undergoing a pilot extension of its openinghours to 6am at weekends.

Annualfluctuations occur in suicide rates. When assessing trends, three year rolling averagesare used because they smooth out some of the fluctuations. It is encouraging tonote that from 2000-02 to 2004-06 there was a downward trend of 13% for populationsuicides. Within this, there was a 14% reduction in male suicides and a 9% reductionin female suicides.

Under theEducation (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, educationauthorities must keep under consideration the additional support needs of, andthe adequacy of additional support provided to, each child and young personwith additional support needs for whose school education they are responsible.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorof Education (HMIE) as part of their general inspection programme, review andpublish reports on the effectiveness of support and educational provision forchildren with additional support needs.

Additionally,HMIE is undertaking a specific evaluation of dyslexia over the period 2007-08,which will provide a clear picture of support, provision and practice across Scotland.Their final report is due to be published in late 2008.

The 1998 and 2003Scottish health surveys provide data on the amount of physical activity taken bychildren aged two to 15 in these years. These findings are summarised (page 99,table 4.1) in the survey report at the link below.http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/25145024/50271.

No comparable figuresare held centrally for earlier years.

The information isnot collected centrally. The Scottish Ambulance Service began capturing informationon the numbers of incidents of violence and aggression towards staff in August 2004when it issued guidance to staff about the need to report such incidents. Therewere 265 incidents reported in 2005 and 299 in 2006. In 2007 to 31 July, there were117 incidents reported.

(1) Scottish Statistics (including comparisonswith English data):

The most recent obesitystatistics for adults in Scotland are available from the Scottish Health Survey 2003.Comparisons with English figures are also available.

Prevalence of obesityand overweight by age and sex (adults aged 16+ years):

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/25145024/50261.(See Table 5.5 on page 175.) (See Table 5.17 on page 189 for comparison of Scotland and England.).

Obesity statisticsfor children are also available from the Scottish Health Survey 2003

Prevalence of obesityand overweight by age and sex (children aged 2 to 15 years):

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/25145024/50271.

(See Table 5.5 onpage 123 for Scottish figures.) (See Table 5.11 on page 127 for comparison of Scotland and England).

In addition, morerecent statistics on obesity in children are available from the Child Health Surveillance Programme.All NHS boards in Scotland are required to provide data for this programme.Data from those boards that record findings using electronic child health systemsare available at the following link.

http://www.isdscotland.org/child_obesity.

(Click on “obesitystatistics” to access a list of available tables and charts.)

(2) Internationalcomparisons:

Care should be takenin interpreting international comparisons because of differences in definitionsof obesity and in survey methodologies. Some international comparisons subsume Scottishdata as part of United Kingdom figures.

For adults, the OECDhealth data 2007, reports obesity levels for those aged 15+ years up to 2005:

http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,3343,en_2649_37407_2085200_1_1_1_37407,00.html.

For children, theWorld Health Organization Health Behaviour of School-aged Children (2001/02), WHOHBSC, report presents obesity levels for young people aged 13 and 15 years:

http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/who/informationsources/publications/catalogue/20040518_1.

(See Chapter 3, Page125, Figure 3.3.).

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-2930 on 27 August 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

This information isnot currently held centrally.

However, from 2006, the Scottish Executive annual pupilcensus started to change how it records additional support needs and included aspecific category to record pupils for whom dyslexia is reported as a reason foradditional support being required. Previously such pupils were included in a widercategory.

Further informationis available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/02/27083941/12and http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/02/27083941/14.