Chamber and committees

The requested information is not held centrally. NHS National Services Scotland, Information Services Division collect and publish sickness absence data at a national and board level once a year. Annual information from 2007 is available at the following link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2017-06-06/Sickness_Absence_M2017.xls .

The information requested is not held centrally. This information may be available from NHS Boards.

We are continuing to develop the Health Visiting Services to deliver a consistent enhanced service to all families and grow the workforce to meet additional demands. The Universal Health Visitor Pathway, published in October 2015, outlines a core home visiting programme as a minimum standard to be offered to all families with children under 5 years of age. The pathway is being implemented by NHS Boards on an incremental basis as new health visitors are recruited, and it is expected that full implementation will be achieved by 2020.

The Scottish Government supports development of trauma-informed services and work is underway to raise awareness of the impact of trauma and adverse childhood experiences amongst various sectors.

Education Scotland has developed a range of professional learning resources and support materials to support implementation of nurturing approaches across Scottish schools. These include the document “ Applying Nurture as a Whole School Approach ”, a framework for self-evaluation of a Nurturing approach in schools and Early Learning and Childcare settings. https://education.gov.scot/improvement/documents/inc55applyingnurturingapproaches120617.pdf . All materials complement development of trauma-informed schools, offering guidance on meeting the needs of all children and young people but particularly those who have experienced early adversity and trauma.

Education Scotland are developing additional professional learning materials which give further guidance and support for children who have experienced early adversity and trauma, and curricular materials to help children and young people develop an understanding of early adversity and trauma. It is hoped that these will be available in the academic session 2018-19.

In June 2017, a report was published by the multi-disciplinary Scottish Adverse Childhood Experiences Hub, hosted by NHS Health Scotland, to inform thinking about the impact of adverse childhood experiences within education. http://www.healthscotland.scot/media/1517/tackling-the-attainment-gap-by-preventing-and-responding-to-adverse-childhood-experiences.pdf In March 2018, a conference was held by Education Scotland, NHS Health Scotland and the Scottish Government to share best practice on addressing adverse childhood experiences in education.

http://www.healthscotland.scot/events/2018/march/relationships-and-resilience-addressing-childhood-adversity-to-support-childrens-learning-and-wellbeing

In May 2017, NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Government published “ Transforming Psychological Trauma: A Knowledge and Skills Framework for the Scottish workforce ”. The Reference and Implementation Group for this Framework now includes representatives of Education Scotland and it is currently developing a training plan to support the workforce to put necessary trauma training in place. This Group will consider how this work can be applied in schools, including how it fits with existing practice around nurturing approaches and development of trauma informed practices in schools.

The "Valuing Carers 2015" report authored by Professor Sue Yeandle (University of Sheffield) and Dr Lisa Buckner (University of Leeds) estimates that carers in Scotland provided care services to the value of £10.8 billion in 2015.

There is currently no centrally held data for the number of people entitled to an adult respite care break. The new Carers Census will collect data from Carer's Centres and local authorities about Carers who have an adult care support plan, whether they have a need for a respite care break and whether they received a respite care break. Initial data will be available later in 2018.

No analysis has been carried out specifically on the impact of adult respite care on the number of primary care admissions. Section 4.6.7 of the “Scotland’s Carers” publication published 24 March 2015 talks about the impact of short breaks or respite. The Carers Act Monitoring and Evaluation Group is currently carrying out an Evaluability Assessment and this will be looking at what data currently exists on respite and what the priorities are for further analysis going forward.

Data showing the cases of exclusion for each local authority for the academic years 1999-00 -2002-03 is available on the Scottish Government website here:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2004/09/19874/42462

Data showing the cases of exclusion for each local authority for the academic years 2003-04 – 2016-17 is available in table 24 of the supplementary tables, on the Scottish Government website here:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/exclusiondatasets/exclusionsdataset2017

Since 2010-11 the data has been collected biennially so no data is held for 2011-12, 2013-14 or 2015-16.

Cases of exclusion refers to the number of incidences of exclusion, not the number of individual pupils excluded, as a pupil can be excluded multiple times.

The Scottish Government works closely with the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). This independent expert advisory group advises Ministers and the NHS in the four UK countries about all aspects of screening policy using the international research evidence base and establishing pilot programmes where appropriate to collect additional evidence.

The UK NSC and the Scottish Government recognise that lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK and, unless found at an early stage, the outcome is poor. Nevertheless, the UK NSC does not currently recommend a national screening programme for lung cancer because there is not yet enough evidence that this is a good approach to reduce the burden of the disease. In particular there are concerns around significant over-diagnosis leading to potentially invasive investigations in people who are well.

The policy is due to be reviewed again, taking into account the results of the NELSON randomised lung cancer screening trial. If there is any change to the policy this will be carefully considered by the Scottish Government.

The new GP contract, backed by investment of £110 million in 2018-19 and jointly developed with the BMA, will help to cut doctors’ workload and make general practice an even more attractive career. This will include expanding the multidisciplinary team including link workers, vital to improving patient care in deprived communities.

The new workload formula better addresses practice workload, recognising the impact of age and deprivation. It is accompanied by an additional £23 million investment to improve services for patients where workload is highest, and to guarantee that no practice in Scotland will lose money under the formula. This will mean increased funding for c.63% of GP practices.

Future funding uplifts will apply to all GP practices’ share of the total funding derived by the new formula during Phase 1, including the new income guarantee. The annual uplift for 2018-19 will be negotiated in Summer 2018 following the publication of recommendations for the annual uplift by the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration.

The new GP contract introduces a funding formula based on the workload that the practice population is expected to generate. It is based on the best available evidence and as such it more accurately reflects the workload of GPs.

The impact of deprivation on the workload of a practice is better reflected in the new workload formula than the previous Scottish Allocation Formula. Methodological improvements mean both deprivation in urban areas and isolated pockets of rural deprivation are better addressed by the new formula.

The new formula was developed as part of a 2016 review of the Scottish Allocation Formula (ttp://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/11/1343/downloads ), and was informed by the 2017 Review of GP Earnings and Expenses ( http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0052/00527540.pdf ). The impact of the new funding formula will be monitored during implementation.