Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20422 on 23 April 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

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

Potential support for footpaths is proposed under the next Scotland Rural Development Programme, but final decisions have yet to be made. Scottish Ministers will carefully consider all feedback received from the latest consultation which closed on 28 February 2014, before our proposals are finalised.

The Scottish Government also provides support through one-off projects funded by Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland, the two National Park Authorities and through the Sustrans’ Community Links programme. Furthermore, a number of ad hoc walk/cycle path projects to construct new path networks have been funded by contributions from the Scottish Government’s Sustainable Action Fund – Indeed I had the pleasure of opening one such project at the Tweed Valley Railway Path near Peebles in August 2013.

National annual statistics for NHS Complaints are published by the Information Services Division of NHS National Services Scotland. The 2012-13 statistics were published on 24 September 2013 and are available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Quality-indicators/Publications/index.asp#1143.

This publication includes a specific table that sets out the NHS 24 complaints, by issue, since 2003-04.

This information is not held centrally.

This is an operational matter for NHS 24, but they advise that no IT systems have been shelved.

Patient safety incidents can be generated from feedback from other parts of the healthcare system, patient feedback, complaint investigations or from staff completing adverse incident forms. NHS 24 has provided the following table which sets out the numbers of reported incidents in each year.

NHS 24 have provided the following table which sets out the total overtime hours worked by NHS 24 staff in each year since 2007, and the monthly average for each year:

* In 2009, NHS 24 were involved in the Scottish Government/NHS response to the H1N1 pandemic and operated the Scottish Flu Response Centre which required additional staffing resource.

NHS 24 staff are employed under the terms of the UK wide Agenda for Change agreement. Agenda for Change allows for all staff working more than 6 hours to be allowed an unpaid rest break during their shift, this is in line with the European Working Time Directive.

NHS 24 advise that their staff will work a range of contracted hours and shifts to ensure the delivery of safe, effective and person centred care. The average number of hours worked across the service is 7.5 hours per day for full time staff and 6 hours per day for part time staff.

NHS 24 advises that the average talk time per patient is just over thirteen minutes.

Information on the NHS24 staff complement for each year since 2007, broken down by profession, is available from September 2007 to December 2013, on a quarterly basis from September 2010, at whole time equivalent (WTE) and headcount level. The information is shown in Table 1 (WTE) and Table 2 (headcount).

Table 1 - Whole time equivalent of NHS 24 staff by profession September 2007 to December 2011:

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), ISD Scotland

Table 1 (cont) - Whole time equivalent of NHS 24 staff by profession March 2012 to December 2013:

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), ISD Scotland

Table 2 - Headcount of NHS 24 staff by profession September 2007 to December 2011

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), ISD Scotland

Table 2 (cont)-Headcount of NHS 24 staff by profession March 2012 to December 2013:

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), ISD Scotland

Note

1. HCHS is Hospital, community and public health services

Further information on NHS 24 staff in post can be found in the Overall Trend table on the workforce statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2014-02-25/Overall_Trend_D2013.xls