Chamber and committees

Subsequent to publication of Reviewing Peer Working: A New Way of Working in Mental Health, the Scottish Government has provided funding to the Scottish Recovery Network to take forward work on developing peer-support networks in Scotland. Discussions with stakeholders to implement the findings of the report are on-going. A final update on progress will be given in early 2016 once the current mental health strategy has concluded.

Information on sickness absence data for NHS Scotland is published on an annual basis and available on the ISD website, however the specific information requested in a) and b) is not held centrally.

People bereaved by suicide can obtain support in the first instance from their GPs. Support is also available from national and local bereavement organisations, a number of which are funded through suicide prevention planning groups led by Choose Life Co-ordinators. Support is available through organisations such as Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland; and through telephone help services such as Breathing Space and Samaritans. Some local areas provide direct support to people bereaved by suicide. Local Choose Life Co-ordinators are able to signpost people to these resources.

The Scottish Government has not had any discussions with East Renfrewshire Council regarding this as it is a matter for the local authority. It is the local authorities’ responsibility to set their own priorities in the delivery of local services. The Scottish Government, however, expects local authorities to consult with service users and carers when determining the resources to be allocated to centres for people with learning disabilities and other additional support needs.

The Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities was presented and accepted evidence that the fundamental causes of health inequalities are rooted in an unequal distribution of income, power and wealth, and that these causes influence the distribution of wider environmental influences on health such as the availability of good quality housing, work and education as well as access to services and social opportunities in an area. This wider environment shapes individual experiences resulting in unequal health outcomes.

Mental wellbeing is a complex phenomenon which can be influenced by a wide range of factors. It is difficult to attribute levels of wellbeing to particular circumstances or locations. However, it is already known that people living in the least deprived areas can be at risk of experiencing lower levels of mental wellbeing.

The Scottish Government is tackling mental wellbeing through the commitments set out in the mental health strategy and the suicide prevention strategy, as well as pursuing policies and practices to reduce the fundamental causes of health inequalities through wider action on improving housing, employability and infrastructure, for example our investment of £1.7 billion in affordable housing over the lifetime of this Parliament.

The number of patients admitted to a hospital outwith their health board of residence broken down by health board of residence and year is shown in the following table. The figures below for out of area treatment includes patients treated at other hospitals such as the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, even if that hospital is within the local health board area:

Source: SMR01 Information Services Division Scotland.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) is the Scottish Government’s official measure of house condition but it is the responsibility of the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) to monitor landlords’ performance against the Scottish Housing Quality Standard target. The Scottish Government considers that the difference between the two sets of reported success rates can be attributed to the following factors: the different methodologies used by SHCS and the SHR for collecting information; the timing of these assessments; the purpose of the two data collections; the potential for the condition of the stock to be reported differently in the two surveys; and the fact that landlords will be applying their wider knowledge of their stock in the SHR return and the provisions for stock to be exempted in the SHR return and not in the SHCS.

We commissioned the Mental Health Foundation and Voices of Experience to undertake the 10 year follow up report. We have been working with the Mental Health Foundation to address the delays in publishing and can now assure you this will be published by Christmas 2015. The delays are related to staffing resources and the complexity of the work.

As there is currently no standard set of definitions for crowding, data on crowding, is not available.

The Emergency Department Capacity Management Guidance, issued in partnership with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in September, will support NHS boards to develop local definitions, measures and thresholds appropriate to their different physical layouts and size of units.

The information is not available in the format requested.

NHS Education for Scotland is responsible for the training placements of GPs in Scotland but it does not hold information on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. It has provided the following information that shows the number of hospital based GP training posts by deanery from 2011-15 (tables one to five), as well as a breakdown of the number of GP training practices by region for 2015 (table six). There can be up to three trainees in one practice at a time.

Table One:

Table Two:

Table Three:

Table Four:

Table Five:

Table Six:

Number of GP Training Practices by Region in 2015: