Chamber and committees

More equitable access to modern radiotherapy is one of the ambitions of our cancer strategy, Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action, published last year. Currently all Scottish radiotherapy departments have state-of-the-art linear accelerators and associated equipment capable of delivering the most up-to-date and technically complex treatments. £60 million has been invested in updating radiotherapy equipment in the four years to 2014-15. The cancer strategy pledges to invest further £50 million in radiotherapy equipment and relevant training and staff across NHS Scotland to meet projected demands over the next 10 to 15 years.

The feasibility study is being conducted by Scottish Government officials, working with analysts and economists to produce a reliable estimate of the costs involved in extending free personal care to all adults.

The feasibility study will also look at:

The interaction with the wider policy environment, including the relationship with social security;

Financial benefits and constraints;

The administration costs of charging for social care; and

Will seek to clarify or enhance data provided by Councils through the Local Financial Returns.

The feasibility study will be completed in summer 2017.

It is not possible to accurately identify all staff defined as ‘cancer specialists’ – either wholly or as part of their role – from centrally held data due to the multi-disciplinary roles involved in the delivery of cancer services. NHSScotland Boards are expected to ensure that patients with specialist conditions have appropriate access to a range of professionals to enable optimum management of their condition.

Last year we published our five-year £100 million Cancer Strategy which sets out how we will improve patients’ access to cancer diagnosis and treatment. We have also committed to invest an extra £2.5 million of recurring funding in specialist nursing and care from 2015-16 onwards.

Further information on the NHSScotland workforce, including those staff involved in the delivery of cancer services, is published by ISD Scotland and is available at the following link:- http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/data-tables2017.asp?id=1870#1870

We expect that every NHS Scotland patient who needs it has access to Proton Beam Therapy (PBT). PBT is highly specialised and available in only a few treatment centres globally. There are currently no NHS PBT centres in the UK and Scottish patients go to other European countries or the USA for PBT. Costs are covered by central NHS funding. Treatment referrals are agreed by a Scottish expert panel and subsequently by a UK panel. More information can be found from: https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/highly-spec-services/pbt/.

NHS National Services Scotland, Information Services Department 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, this information is not broken down by job family: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-06-07/Sickness_Absence_M2016.xls

This study looks at the following in male prisoners:

A comparison of the prevalence of head injury in prisoners assessed by self-report and by hospital records.

A comparison of in prisoners with HI and without HI.

How effective are the head injury screening tools at objective evidence for HI in hospital records?

How effective are the screening tools at detecting persisting disability, neuropsychological impairment and mental health difficulties associated with head injury?

How practically useful are the screening tools in the SPS system?

Which of the two screening tools that are being evaluated is most useful in the SPS context?

The study is due to be completed in the summer of 2017 and a report available before the end of the year.

We have provided significant resource to enable the Living Wage to be paid to care workers supporting adults. This focus has been to recognise challenges facing the sector in regards to recruitment and retention and to improve quality of care.

We wish to see everyone in Scotland be paid at least the Living Wage and we encourage local partners and providers to expand on this initiative to include other groups of workers where this is regarded as affordable and sustainable and meets local priorities.

Data on care hours provided by local authorities is published by the Scottish Government at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/Data/HomeCare/SocialCareDatasets.

The Scottish Government does not set targets for local authorities' delivery of care hours.

The following number of practices were closed to new patient registrations in each NHS board:

Board/Year	Ayrshire and Arran, Borders, Fife, Forth Valley, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Shetland, and Western Isles	Greater Glasgow and Clyde	Lanarkshire	Orkney	Tayside
1999	0	Not held	0	0	0
2000	0	Not held	0	0	0
2001	0	Not held	0	0	0
2002	0	Not held	0	0	0
2003	0	Not held	0	0	0
2004	0	1	0	0	0
2005	0	2	0	0	0
2006	0	4	0	0	0
2007	0	6	0	0	0
2008	0	5	0	0	0
2009	0	5	0	0	0
2010	0	3	0	0	0
2011	0	1	0	1	0
2012	0	1	1	1	0
2013	0	3	1	0	0
2014	0	3	1	0	0
2015	0	2	3	0	4
2016	0	8	5	0	10
2017	0	3	4	0	4

Circumstances will arise where a practice experiences capacity issues and is unable to routinely accept new patients onto its list. We expect Health boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage the situation and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

This information is not held centrally, individual local authorities are responsible for collating the data in their area.