Chamber and committees

We have committed to considering how best to address the charging issue for people with dementia under 65 raised in Amanda Kopel's petition and the ‘Frank’s Law’ campaign, but remain of the view that any changes to the charges to service users for the care they receive at home must be fair to all users, irrespective of their illness or long-term condition.

For 2016-17 the Scottish Government provided additional funding of a quarter of a billion pounds for social care. This offer included £6 million to cover the changes in the charging thresholds to local authorities as a first step towards making charging fairer. We are taking an anti-poverty approach by prioritising support for those on low incomes first.

Since its launch on 2 April 2013 to 31 March 2016 (the latest date for which figures are available), a total of 276 cases have been raised with the NHSScotland Confidential Alert Line. This figure includes both public (whistleblowing) and private (contractual) cases.

Due to the independent and confidential nature of the service, the Scottish Government does not hold a breakdown of the total number of cases by NHS board.

The number of calls along with evaluation reports are published on the Scottish Government website at:http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Health/NHS-Workforce/Employee-Experience/NHS-staff-alert-line

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-00421 on 15 June 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.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) are currently trialling three heart Autopulse machines in the south east of Scotland as part of their approach to Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA). There are also two Autopulse machines available to SCOTstar, the national specialist transport and retrieval service.

SAS continually reviews the available evidence about the best way to respond to OHCA to give patients the best chance of survival and recovery, and reviews its training and equipment requirements based on this evidence.

It is for each NHS board to ensure that they provide care that is safe, effective and person centred, taking into account local service needs, national guidance and clinical standards. There are Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks in place to ensure a co-ordinated approach to improving respiratory services locally.

NHS National Services Scotland commission services such as Respiratory Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) and the home oxygen service on behalf of all NHS boards in Scotland. NSS has a role in ensuring that the services provided are of the highest quality and can be accessed by patients from all parts of Scotland.

<>The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring parity in public sector funding for adult and children’s hospices. An interim funding arrangement which reduces the gap has been agreed for 2016-17. We have initiated a review of hospice funding to report by December 2016 which will include proposals for achieving parity.

While information on how many cleaning staff have been directly employed in each NHS board in each year since 1999 is not centrally held, information on the pre-agenda for change ancillary staff group from 30 September 1999 to 30 September 2006 is published by Information Services Division Scotland (ISD) and can be found in the following link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Historic-Data/WFG01_HB_REG.xls

Information on the number of whole time equivalent staff working in hotel services from 30 September 2007 to 31 March 2016 is published by ISD Scotland and can be found in the following link:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-06-07/Non-Medical_Trend_M2016.xls

The Scottish Government is currently working with NHS Scotland on the development of a business case on the introduction of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing to the cervical screening programme. This business case is expected to be submitted later in 2016 and Scottish Ministers will make a decision on the future use of HPV testing in the programme on the basis of the evidence and assessment it provides.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Health Scotland to undertake research with women into the reasons for non-uptake of the screening invitation in 2015. This research was carried out with women from both younger and older age groups and will be used to consider how we can deliver targeted communications to different age groups to improve uptake of cervical screening.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Health Scotland to undertake research with women into the reasons for non-uptake of the screening invitation at the end of 2015. A large part of this research focused on the facilitators and barriers to uptake. The results of this work has informed the communications strategy which supports the cervical screening programme and has fed into the development of an upcoming awareness raising campaign.