Chamber and committees

Transport Scotland has had previous engagement on ferries matters with the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the relevant trades unions, representing the employees of David MacBrayne Limited, and would expect that engagement to continue in future.

The Scottish Government has not yet consulted with them on the future tendering of the next Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract, but intend to do so in due course.

Expenditure on consultancy is published on the David MacBrayne Ltd website in accordance with the requirements of the Public Sector Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

http://www.david-macbrayne.co.uk/reports/

Any further breakdown of this information is considered commercially sensitive.

An informal meeting with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has already taken place on 7 May 2014 and a more formal, larger meeting is being organised and will be attended by officials from the Health and Social Care Directorate in the Scottish Government.

CalMac will engage with its staff as appropriate throughout the bid submission process. This is already underway through established internal communications channels.

NHS boards are currently scoping the work required to enhance major trauma services across Scotland, including the resource implications.

The National Planning Forum and board of Chief Executives will identify any additional resources required as part of this work, and will keep Scottish Ministers appraised of their plans to ensure that the major trauma quality framework is implemented.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-21247 on 29 May 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s web site, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Implementation of the major trauma quality framework will help NHSScotland (including NHS Lothian), to ensure definitive trauma care is provided across Scotland and importantly, better outcomes for people who experience major trauma.

Approximately £50-75k has been identified for developing a web-based service that will provide a more accessible service targeted at working age people in a collaboration between NHS24 and the Centre for Healthy Working Lives. This is expected to go live in 2015. The remainder of the £133k budget has been provided to programmes delivering targeted support for people in communities with high levels of inequalities in health.

The performance measure is monitored through results of an access survey, which directly measures patients’ experience of getting access to their General Practice, within 48 hours, on the basis of clinical need. The percentages shown are calculated from the results of national surveys of GP practice patients and reflect the views of randomly sampled patients who responded to the survey in each year. They are not based on an evaluation of all appointment records/all patients in each practice.

Latest available figures, published in May 2012, show that 92.6% of patients were offered the opportunity to see or speak to a doctor or nurse within 48 hours – above our target of 90%. 85% of patients were able to see or speak to a doctor or nurse within two working days, 8% were offered an appointment, but the person they wanted to see was not available or the time was not convenient and 7% were unable to get access.

Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the 2004 General Medical Service Regulations sets out the requirements that GP Practices and Health Boards must follow in managing patient lists, including closure of patients lists.

Boards should find ways to either support the practice to once again take on patients or to agree a formal, usually time limited, closure, informing other local practices in the area. This safeguards patient access and allows the Board to monitor the situation more fully and to take any further appropriate action.

NHS Boards have provided the following information.

These costs are driven by activity which is not possible to forecast.