Chamber and committees

Service decisions are made by each local area and it would be for individual Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to provide this information.

Data on nurse endoscopists is not held by ISD within the ‘Clinical Nurse Specialty’ category.

Further information on ISD statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/ .

We note the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) have used a bed occupancy of 85% to estimate that NHS Scotland needs an additional 200 beds. For context, that is 1.5% of NHS Scotland’s acute bed base; RCEM also estimate that in England an additional 5,065 beds are needed - 5.0% of the general & acute bed base.

I understand that the 85% bed occupancy originates from research carried out around 20 years ago. There have been significant changes to the NHS and the way care is delivered since then, including the four hour A&E standard, ambulatory care, and same day surgery. We recognise that bed occupancy should be monitored as part of hospital bed planning. The latest published statistics show acute specialty bed occupancy in Scotland was at 87.7%, 86.9%, 85.9% and 86.7% in the last four years.

The Scottish Government is supporting Health and Social Care Partnerships to deliver more care in the community, and where possible at home, avoiding the need to go to hospital unnecessarily. This will allow hospitals to focus on the medical support that acute care can and should provide, and stays in hospital will be shorter. Alongside this we are working closely with health boards to support improved processes that will reduce the number of patients admitted to hospital that do not require admission and ensure that patients are discharged as soon as they are medically fit, avoiding unnecessary delays in hospital. As a result of this work, we have already delivered significant improvements in terms of reducing length of stay.

We will continue to engage in co-operative work with RCEM as we jointly seek to improve the delivery and effectiveness of our NHS.

Integration Authorities carry out an assessment of needs for supports and services – including adult social care support – as part of their strategic planning process. Authorities were required to have a plan in place for the delegation of functions to them and are required to review their strategic commissioning plan at least every three years, but may carry out additional or ongoing reviews.

The strategic planning process involves considering the specific characteristics and circumstances of their communities and available infrastructure, the overall needs of local service users and those of their overall population. Strategic plans should identify the total resources available across health and social care for each care group and for carers, and relate this information to the overall needs of local populations set out in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

We meet regularly with all partnership areas to discuss their strategic plans and the progress they are making in addressing the needs of their local communities. We are planning to produce an overview report on the refreshed strategic plans later in this year which will pull out common themes and priorities.

The collectively-led national programme for reform of adult social care will consider the cost of social care support and how it is paid for. This will include consideration of the need for social care across Scotland, including unmet need, drawing on a range of sources, including our statistical publications on the provision of care homes and social care support services. The programme will consider how we can best support models of care to grow that are flexible and person-centred, to meet the rights and individual needs of people across Scotland into the future. It will also link with integrated workforce analysis and planning through the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan.

The procurement of replacement GP IT systems commenced with publication of the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) and Contract Notice in June 2017, was in advance of the publication of the Digital Health and Care Strategy (April 2018) in which the commitment to develop the National Digital Platform was first made. The tender documents did not require integration with the National Digital Platform at the point of initial delivery of the new systems, though suppliers were asked to confirm that their systems would have the ability to bi-directionally share data, which will be essential to future work to integrate these systems with the platform.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that everyone who needs palliative and end of life care, can access it.

Since 2016, it has been the responsibility of Integration Authorities to commission and plan palliative and end of life care services and supports to meet the needs of their local population. This includes out of hours provision relating to palliative and end of life care for those being cared for in a hospital setting.

To support Integration Authorities in this work, the Scottish Government published an Advice Note on Palliative and End of Life Care for Integration Authorities in May 2018 as an accompaniment to the existing statutory guidance on Strategic Commissioning Plans.

This Advice Note was developed in collaboration with third sector colleagues such as Marie Curie and the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care, and made clear the importance of ensuring that there is a mixture of community and acute palliative care services and supports available to ensure people get the care they need. The Advice Note also emphasises the importance of working collaboratively with third sector organisations to ensure that local palliative and end of life care expertise is used to support better care for those with palliative care needs.

Further information on the local palliative care teams that provide expert advice to medical professionals caring for those with palliative care needs in an acute setting can be found at the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care website at: https://www.palliativecarescotland.org.uk/content/services_by_nhs_board/

I refer the member to the answer given to question S5W-24468 on 30 August 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Police Scotland is a key partner on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce and works with a wide range of partners, including the Royal Mail, to disrupt the distribution of drugs through all routes, including the postal service.

The Scottish Government and NHS Health Boards are monitoring progress regularly on how funding to improve waiting times is being spent. We expect Health Boards to take action to ensure that the funding is delivering the improvements expected.

An oversight board, the Operational Performance Board (OPB), was established to drive delivery of the actions set out in the Plan. The OPB has a key role in maintaining a strategic oversight of the funding and activity to improve waiting times. The OPB is chaired by an ex-health Board Chief Executive and membership includes a number of NHS Board Chief Executives and Health and Social Care Directors.

The Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) has been in operation in Scottish GP practices, community pharmacies and NHS Practitioner Services Division (PSD) since 2008, and is now used as standard in all family GP practices. ETP enables the electronic generation, transmission, dispensing and processing of prescriptions by use of barcodes on the GP10 prescription form. It improves patient safety by reducing transcribing errors, modernises service delivery and increases the efficiency of the processing of prescriptions by removing the reliance on paper.

The Scottish Government’s ePharmacy Programme supports the on-going use and development of ETP and other services through the funding allocation to NHS Practitioner and Counter Fraud Services.

Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care strategy sets out our commitment to use digital information, data and technologies for improved service delivery including paperless prescribing
https://www.gov.scot/publications/achieving-excellence-pharmaceutical-care-strategy-scotland/