Chamber and committees

Training for applied psychology for children and young people, child psychotherapy, and clinical trainees for child and adolescent mental health services are provided through partnership arrangements between NHS Education for Scotland (NES), the NHS boards and Universities.

Total number of MSc applied psychology for children and young people trainees as at 31 March 2015: 15

The educational provider is the University of Edinburgh working with NES and NHS boards.

Total number of child psychotherapy trainees as at 31 March 2015: 5

This training is provided through the University of London, Tavistock and Portsmouth NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with Human Development Scotland, NES and NHS boards.

Numbers of clinical trainees for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS): 54, derived from CAMHS aligned current doctorates in clinical psychology trainees as at May 2015 and child and adolescent psychiatrist trainees as at 31 March 2015.

The information requested on how many nursing shifts have been unfilled since May 2011, broken down by NHS board, is not centrally held or published by National Services Scotland (Information Services Division).

The Scottish Government expects all NHS boards to have the right person in place at the right time to ensure they can provide safe, effective and high quality care for their patients.

We have developed a series of ground-breaking Nursing and Midwifery Workload and Workforce Planning Tools that support evidence based decisions in relation to nursing and midwifery establishments. These tools are used to determine the number of nurses or midwives needed for particular clinical areas through measurement of actual workload, as part of a broader approach that incorporates nurses’ professional judgment and quality measures. Application of the tools has been mandatory since April 2013 and NHS boards are using the tools to inform local nursing and workforce planning.

We commissioned the Mental Health Foundation and Voices of Experience to undertake the 10 year follow up review of the state of mental health services in Scotland. The report is now expected to be published in summer 2015.

I met with the Very Reverend Graham Forbes CBE, Chair; and Colin McKay, Chief Executive of the Mental Welfare Commission on 28 January 2015. I was supported at that meeting by Penny Curtis, Acting Head of Mental Health and Protection of Rights Division. Matters discussed were the commission’s role, 2015 priorities, thoughts on scope for future activity, the National Confidential Forum, the Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategy, the Mental Health Bill and an invite to meet with the commission’s board members.

Future meetings will be arranged in accordance with the Management Statement and Financial Memorandum Agreed Between the Scottish Government Health Directorate and the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland April 2011. Copies of this document are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. 52920) and on the commission’s website at:

The information requested on how many gynaecologists have been employed in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board is provided in the following table.

Table 1: Number (whole-time equivalent) of obstetrics and gynaecology hospital, community, and public health services medical staff in post as at 30 September, 2006 to 2014

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland

Notes:

The following symbol has been used:

- nil

SWISS contains data provided to ISD by NHS boards. However, it is recognised that data within SWISS do not always match the data held by NHS boards at a local level due to inconsistencies in how data are recorded within each NHS board.

During July 2008, medical and dental information was migrated from the MEDMAN web based system to SWISS. This alignment provided the opportunity to capture all NHS Scotland staff in post information in one system which resulted in more robust information being captured and reported.

To ensure that this migration was successful, ISD worked with all NHS boards to review and amend their medical and dental staff in post details. The data captured started to be of improved quality for the September 2008 census. Considerable movements were seen between specialties from 2007 to 2010 as boards migrated to SWISS and continued to review their data.

In September 2012 an increase is seen in the number of medical and dental staff that were recorded with not known specialty for NHS Lothian. This was due to an error in the feed from the local system to SWISS that was rectified for September 2014. The result is an apparent drop in the number of obstetrics and gynaecology medics for September 2012 and September 2013.

The number of GP referrals to gynaecologist made in each year since 2007, by NHS board is provided in the following table.

Source: Information Services Division Scotland (SMR00¹ and Waiting Times Data Warehouse²)

Health boards, in general, do not provide humidification as there has been no identified clinical need and therefore they do not record any humidification data.

NHS boards, in general, do not provide humidification as there has been no identified clinical need. Therefore, there is no specific healthcare associated infection policy or guidance on this matter.

Health Facilities Scotland has issued Scottish Health Technical Memorandum (SHTM) 03-01: Ventilation for healthcare premises, which provides guidance on humidification. The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on specific action taken by each NHS board.

SHTM 03-01 Part A ‘Design and Validation’:

Clauses 3.14 and 3.15 deal with humidity control requirements; and

Clauses 4.92 to 4.119 deal with humidification.

SHTM 03-01 Part B ‘Operational management and performance verification’:

Clauses 3.41 to 3.48 cover humidifiers.

There are other sections covering the cleaning and inspection of humidifiers.

SHTM guidance advises that:

‘3.14 Providing humidification is expensive in terms of plant, running costs and maintenance, and therefore its use should be restricted to where it is necessary for physiological or operational reasons.’

‘3.15 Humidification was originally required for some healthcare applications, e.g. operating theatres, in order to control the risk associated with the use of flammable anaesthetic gases. The use of such gases has now ceased. Humidification is therefore no longer required unless there is a very specific application requirement.’

We have recently developed a data set with partners to track progress in developing intensive community treatment teams and other tier 4 child and adolescent mental health services activity, and how the adolescent inpatient units are working. NHS National Services Scotland will be starting to collect the data in autumn 2015, and this should provide us with a comprehensive picture of how services are functioning nationally.