Chamber and committees

After the Parliamentary debate on 5 March and my subsequent meeting with affected women, I gave careful consideration to the views expressed in relation to mesh complication services and, as I explained in my letter of 3 April, followed up on the short-time working group. The group, including Health Board Accountable Officers (or nominated Deputies) and other key individuals, has been established in order to examine the needs of patients and the course of care provided for those who suffer complications following vaginal mesh surgery. It will consider what additional steps could be taken to offer choice to women who want – and are clinically suitable for – removal of mesh. The group will also review and identify areas of best practice in the United Kingdom and beyond, and if these are not already available, consider how these can be provided in Scotland. The work that I have asked the group to undertake, along with my letters of 3 April both to you and to the patients who I met, reflect the commitments I gave in the 5 March meeting.

Setting out the group's work in more detail, it will:

• consider the physical and psychological needs of women who experience complications following vaginal mesh surgery;
• consider sharing experience, techniques and learning with colleagues in Europe, the USA and elsewhere. For this to be successful it is important that surgeons and clinical teams engage with counterparts of proven merit and who are regarded by the professionals as leaders and innovators in their field;
• review the course and organisation of care for patients suffering complications in Scotland with a broader UK perspective;
• examine the complex education and training requirements we must have to ensure a sustainable, resilient and high quality service; and
• identify the resource requirements to provide the service our patients need.

As the group progresses this work, it will be important takes account of patient views. A clinician has been nominated by Scottish Mesh Survivors to represent them in this respect. In addition and in order to capture a broad perspective of patient opinion, officials are presently examining further avenues for patient feed-in, and are seeking the advice of both Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Transvaginal Mesh Oversight Group and the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland.

It is, of course, important that this work is progressed as quickly as possible, so that we can ensure that patients at all times have access to a sustainable, resilient and quality service. As such, an initial meeting of the group took place on 5 April, with further meetings being held as required over the coming months. Further, the group aims to conclude this work in the autumn, at which point it will report to Health Board Chief Executives, given their role as leaders for service change. Minutes of the group’s meetings, together with members’ declarations of interests, will be published in due course.

Membership of the group is as follows:

Terry O’Kelly, Scottish Government (Chair)

Sham Konamme, NHS Ayrshire and Arran

Faye Rodger, NHS Borders

Heather Currie, NHS Dumfries and Galloway

Carolyn McKinley, NHS Fife

Klara Ekevall, NHS Forth Valley

Christine Hemming, NHS Grampian

Alan Mathers, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Ibrahim Alsharaydeh, NHS Highland

Adeeb Hassan, NHS Lanarkshire

Simon Nicholson, NHS Lothian

Peter Fowlie, NHS Tayside (By VC)

Angus McKellar, NHS Western Isles

Lorna McKee, Chair, TVMO Group

Sara Twaddle, Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Sara Davies, Scottish Government

David Bishop, Scottish Government

Alexandra Rice, Scottish Government

Corinne Love, Scottish Government

Nicola Steedman, Scottish Government

Gregory Hill-O’Connor, Health and Social Care Alliance

Wael Agur, Scottish Mesh Survivors Representative

Anne Lillico, Scottish Government (Secretariat)

As the member will be aware from the comprehensive briefing provided by the Lothian Unscheduled Care Service, plans were being put in place to reduce the service on a temporary basis due to sudden unexpected staff shortages - particularly nurses - in order to ensure patient and staff safety but that they would continue to focus on efforts to fill the shifts. I understand that since the Member lodged this question the 9 nights in May which were affected have now been covered and the Out of Hours service will remain open throughout May. Lothian’s Unscheduled Care Service are recruiting nurses to fill the vacancies on a permanent basis.

The SPCB’s contracted service is parliamentary in nature and relates specifically to coverage of the Parliament’s business, corporate and engagement activities.  The contract does not provide for monitoring of party-political coverage or coverage relating to individual MSPs constituency and regional duties.  Given the specific parameters of the service, it is unlikely to meet the needs of all Members generally.  Furthermore, as widening access to all 129 Members would have a significant impact on the SPCB’s NLA licence fee, the SPCB is not minded to go down this route.  The SPCB is aware that each of the political parties has its own media monitoring arrangements, tailored to their individual needs. The SPCB’s subscription to Press Association’s news service is, however, available to all 129 MSPs.  Members can receive PA updates throughout the day by email, based on their preferred search criteria and subject matters.  Any Member who wishes to be added to this service or find out more about it can contact Kathryn Appleby-Donald in SPICe.              

The SPCB’s annual spend is as follows:

• £67,212 on Press Data media monitoring services, which includes its press cuttings service, broadcast monitoring and online news monitoring.
• £33,321 on its NLA licence (Newspaper License Authority), which gives the SPCB copyright permission to access newspaper articles.
• £20,912 on access to Press Association’s news service, which gives subscribers access to PA’s rolling news coverage.

 All figures are net of VAT.

270 people currently have access to or receive media monitoring content from Press Data.  This includes members of the SPCB, the Presiding Officers, Committee Conveners and SPCB staff. 

The SPS pay award for 2019-20 is currently subject to discussion between the Scottish Prison Service and the Trade Unions. The Scottish Government will review the financial impact of the agreement once it has been revealed.

I am aware that there are teacher recruitment challenges in some subjects and in some parts of Scotland but it is also the case that more generally, teacher numbers are at their highest since 2010, vacancies have reduced and student teacher intakes have increased for three years in a row.

We are seeking to continue this progress by taking action to support teacher recruitment – including the development of new routes into teaching, continuing our recruitment campaign and increasing student teacher intake targets.

And, of course, as part of our efforts to make the teaching profession more attractive, we are enhancing the new pay offer by funding an additional 4% uplift this April, beyond the core offer from local authorities, taking the total 3 year pay deal to 13%.

From 2009-10 The Scottish Government produced and published organisational workforce statistics for the previous 8 legacy Scottish Fire and Rescue Services, prior to this figures were collated at a local level and are not held centrally.

The 2009-10 – 2013-14 figures of numbers of firefighters are available on the Scottish Government website at:

https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/PubFireRescue

Firefighter numbers from 2014 onwards are collected by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and can be found on the SFRS website at: https://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/fire-and-rescue-statistics.aspx

The number of firefighters per head of population is higher in Scotland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, there are 11.8 firefighters per 10,000 population. In England, that figure is just 6.3.