Chamber and committees

This information is not collected or held centrally.

Pre-2014 Position:

From records available between 2007-08 and 2013-14, 315 settlement agreements containing confidentiality clauses signed by the relevant staff were agreed. This information is at national not individual health board level, however, and is given in the following table:

The information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government, and should be requested from NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government, along with the rest of the UK, takes its advice on screening policy from the UK National Screening Committee (NSC). Following a review of the evidence in August 2019, the NSC does not currently recommend introduction of national screening.

The review found that it is not clear how well treatment works in people with atrial fibrillation (AF) found through screening or whether screening is better than the current approach.

The SAFER trial (currently ongoing in the UK) is starting to try to find out if screening is more effective than the current situation for people with AF. This will help the UK NSC understand more about the benefits and harms of screening.

sport scotland offer targeted health checks for cardiac issues to all Institute-nominated athletes via established questions, family history checks, examination and access to ECGs. Additional support and checks are directed to the facility based at Hampden Stadium if needed.

The Scottish Government and sport scotland will continue to work with the sporting sector and other partners, such as the Cardiac Research in the Young (CRY) and Scottish HART, to establish partnerships to discuss what steps can be taken forward in this area.

It is up to each NHS board to determine how to fund case finding. The rationale for eliminating hepatitis C is clear both in terms of the benefit to patients and the saving of future costs associated with the consequences of advanced hepatitis C.

If NHS boards do not meet their hepatitis C treatment targets, there is a risk that Scotland as a whole will not reach the 2024 elimination target. Scottish Government officials are monitoring progress towards treatment targets in order to identify and address boards that may be at risk of failing to meet their targets.

Health Protection Scotland has advised that by treating a minimum of 2,500 people during 2019-20 and 3,000 people each year thereafter, we can eliminate hepatitis C in Scotland by 2024. Case finding and treatment will be guided by the recommendations of the Hepatitis C Case Finding and Access to Care report. The largest cost in delivering hepatitis C elimination is the price of medicines, which is subject to commercial confidentiality.

The Chief Executive of each board is ultimately responsible for all aspects of the performance of the board.

In April 2019, Scottish Government wrote to NHS Boards asking them to work with Information Services Division (ISD) to deliver an individual patient-level core dataset – the Child Adolescent and Psychological Therapy National Dataset (CAPTND).

Scottish Government recognises that some of the current systems used by Boards to record Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and Psychological Therapies activity require significant improvement. While these improvements take place, NHS Boards have been asked to deliver a subset of 15 of the core variables as a minimum. Type of diagnosis will be recorded in the final core dataset, although not in the minimum dataset.

The first data transfer (for the minimum dataset) from NHS Boards to ISD is expected at the end of September. Once each Board and ISD are content with the quality of individual level data, the aggregate collection will be discontinued for that Board. The dataset will then form the basis of the official statistics on mental health waiting times, produced by ISD. NHS Boards are currently working with ISD to agree a timeframe for moving from the minimum to core dataset.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing digital participation and ensuring that all of Scotland is able to enjoy the social, cultural and economic benefits of the internet. Home internet access has increased steadily over time, reaching an all-time high of 87 per cent of households in 2018. For those unable to access the internet at home, all of Scotland’s libraries provide free wi-fi access.

Community pharmacies are independent contractors which provide NHS services, and each one is responsible for its own day-to-day operational processes taking into account their business model. While some pharmacies will deliver prescribed medicines to patients’ homes, this is not provided as an NHS service and they offer the service at their own cost. Some may therefore choose to apply a charge for their home delivery services.

We are working with chronic pain services across the whole patient pathway to ensure that people can receive appropriate and timely treatment and care. This will cover all services across primary and secondary care, including specialist chronic pain clinics, with a view to developing sustainable services.

Under the Waiting Times Improvement Plan we have made over £102 million available to Health Boards in 2019-20. These resources will help to reduce waiting times across Scotland in line with the activity agreed in Health Boards Annual Operational Plans, which will be published on Health Boards websites shortly.