Chamber and committees

As part of the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2016-17, £250m was provided from the Health budget to integration authorities for social care, of which £125m was provided to support additional spend on expanding social care, including through making progress on charging thresholds for all non-residential services to address poverty.

Details of the allocations were provided in response to question S4W-30141 answered on 26 February 2016.

The Scottish Government estimated that increasing charging thresholds from 16.5% to 25% would benefit around 13,000 people through reduced charges and take around 900 people out of charging altogether.

Data on the number of referrals made by GP’s, schools or school nurses and named persons to child and adolescent mental health service is not held centrally ISD receives aggregated referral data from NHS Boards. It is not possible to identify the source of the referral.

Data on the number of referrals received and number of referrals rejected is collected and published on the ISD website (http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Child-and-Adolescent-Mental-Health/). Referrals rejected are referrals that do not meet the criteria for CAMHS intervention.

The average age of Mental Health Nurses working in NHSScotland as at 30 September 2016 is 45.

Mental Health Officer (MHO) status, which allows members of the NHS Pension Scheme to retire with an unreduced pension from age 55 onwards (where the member has the necessary MHO service and is working as an MHO immediately before retiring) was discontinued for new members of the NHS Pension Scheme from 1 April 1995. Staff with MHO status at that point have the right to retain it, providing they do not have a break in NHS pensionable employment of five years or more and continue to work in an employment which attracts MHO status. It cannot be presumed, however, that all staff with MHO status who reach the age of 55 will retire at that point, as retirement is discretionary.

Under this Government, the number of Mental Health Nurses working in NHSScotland have increased by 2,158.5 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE), or 29.8 per cent, to 9,404.3 WTE. We have committed to introducing a national and regional workforce planning system across NHSScotland which will help deliver the vision set out in the National Clinical Strategy.

SPS has a long standing relationship with the DWP who have placed JCP staff in all prisons either on a full time or part time basis. Partnership working is ongoing to ensure that access to employment support and benefit advice is continually improving.

SPS continues to work in collaboration with Scottish Government, third sector organisations and employers to provide Community Placements (release on temporary license) and post-liberation employment.

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

The requested information can only be provided for 2011-2015 as data captured prior to this is not comparable.

As such I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-02037 on 13 September 2016. 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

Data on how many people have been refused treatment from mental health services due to also having an alcohol or drug dependency issue is not held centrally.

Community alarms and/or telecare have been in use in their most basic form for over 40 years, with the latest Scottish Government statistics showing that over 126,000 people are being supported at home with telecare. In 2006, following the well-documented benefits of the use of more enhanced telecare as a preventative service in West Lothian, the Scottish Government launched the Telecare Development Programme to spread the approach across Scotland.

This ran until 2011, and independent evaluation carried out by the York Health Economics Forum showed that, overall, almost 44,000 people began a telecare service through the Programme. Around 2,500 hospital discharges were expedited as a result of national funding, whilst at the same time around 8,700 unplanned hospital admissions and over 3,800 care home admissions were also avoided.

By achieving the above outcomes, partnerships saved around:

• 546,000 care home bed days;

  • The average number of care home bed days saved per care home admission avoided was 143 (or roughly 20 weeks).

• 109,000 hospital bed days through facilitated discharges and unplanned admissions avoided;

  • The average number of hospital bed days saved per reduced delayed discharge was 11.

  • The average number of hospital bed days saved per unplanned hospital admission avoided was 9.

• 48,000 nights of sleepover/wakened night care;

• 444,000 home check visits.

See http://www.jitscotland.org.uk/action-areas/telehealth-and-telecare/ for more. Further embedding of telecare as a preventative measure is now being progressed by the Scottish Government through the Technology Enabled Care Programme.

We have committed to undertaking a feasibility study in 2017 into the extension of free personal care to those people under the age of 65 with a diagnosis of dementia. Although community alarms do not count as personal care, no decision has been made as to the scope of the feasibility study.

This information is not held centrally.

The primary aim of the Service Improvement Groups (SIGs) was to bring pain services across Scotland in line with the Scottish Service Model for Chronic Pain. Scottish Government funding was made available to NHS Boards from 2012, totalling £1.3 million, each for two-year periods. All 14 territorial Boards submitted applications based upon their respective local pain services, and these were accepted following a thorough assessment process. The central funding for the SIGs, therefore, was time-limited.

Beyond this additional funding period, it was (and is) a matter for NHS Boards to determine the most appropriate configuration and delivery of chronic pain services to meet the assessed needs of their resident populations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-03083 on 6 October 2016.

The options under consideration were presented at two public exhibitions on 6 and 7 December.