Chamber and committees

In the period 1 October 2018 to 31 December 2019, £25,039.00 was paid to General Ophthalmic Services practitioners who submitted a payment claim for a 3.0 reason code supplementary eye examination. A £24.50 fee is paid for this type of supplementary eye examination claim. This is in addition to the primary eye examination fee paid, which ranges from £37 to £45 depending on the person's age.

This information is not held centrally by either the Scottish Government or Information Services Division (ISD). In these circumstances the Member may wish to contact individual Health Boards to obtain these details.

Information Services Division Scotland publish quarterly statistics on treatment waiting times and types of treatment undertaken which shows how many treatments were started in that period. This information is available here - https://www.isdscotland.org/index.asp .

It should be noted, however, that it isn’t possible to say that the number of treatments started equals the number of individuals undertaking them as the same individual may drop-out and re-start a treatment.

Health Boards in Scotland have a duty to ensure that they have policies in place covering all forms of restrictive practice and that all staff receive appropriate training.

It is the expectation that episodes of restraint are recorded in clinical case records, that a critical incident review should take place locally if an injury occurs during the use of restraint and that any serious injury is reported to the Mental Welfare Commission. Healthcare staff have a professional responsibility to accurately record all elements of a patient’s care and treatment, including any uses of restraint and the reasons for this.

Community pharmacists provide information, advice or assistance to people on the use of and any risks associated with medicines, and medical devices to prevent harm. This includes people who require an Adrenalin Auto Injector (AAIs) device.

Paediatric allergy services are organised through the Children’s and Young People’s Allergy Network Scotland (CYANS), which is a National Managed Clinical Network that focuses on improving health service provision for children and young people with allergies in Scotland.

NHS Inform provides information about the causes, treatment and prevention of anaphylaxis, including the possibility that someone suffering from anaphylaxis may go into cardiac arrest. We are committed to improving out-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes and, since 2015, over 508,000 people across Scotland have been equipped with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills. National public health campaigns have also been run to raise the overall awareness of using CPR skills.

In wider terms the Scottish Government is taking action to prevent anaphylaxis, for example in a move towards the introduction of full ingredient listing, with allergens emphasised, for foods sold on a Prepacked for Direct Sale basis, Food Standards Scotland is currently undertaking public consultation to inform the development of draft regulations, supporting technical guidance and a robust impact assessment for new Scottish regulations that are due to come into force in Autumn 2021.

Treatment for anaphylaxis may take place in primary care, in accident and emergency departments and in hospitals. Statistics provided by ISD shows the number of patients aged (a) under 16 years and (b) 16 years and over, who were discharged from hospital following treatment for anaphylaxis.

Table 1: Patients treated in hospital for a diagnosis of anaphylaxis in NHS Scotland; 2007 to 2018

We expect NHS Boards to adhere to current guidelines on the treatment of anaphylaxis from authorative professional sources such as the Resuscitation Council UK and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Listed below are the six public inquiries constituted under the Inquiries Act 2005 since 2007. There have been a variety of other reviews and non-statutory inquiries for which costs are not held centrally.

The Scottish Government recognises the need to ensure that health and social care professionals have the knowledge, skills and confidence to provide high quality palliative and end of life care, relevant to their role.

In April 2018, we published a new palliative and end of life care Educational Framework that can be used in all health and social care settings to support staff who care for those with palliative and end of life care needs in their professional development. This can be found at: https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/newsroom/features-and-articles/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-enriching-and-improving-experience.aspx .

The Scottish Government is clear about the priority we place on ensuring people can access high quality palliative and end of life care.

Our Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care sets out our ambition that we want those who would benefit from palliative and end of life care to have access to it by 2021. This ambition was re-affirmed in our Health and Social Care Delivery Plan which was published in December 2016.