Chamber and committees

We expect Boards to continue to review the reasons why patients do not attend appointments and look for ways to improve their booking practices and clinic times such as running clinics at night or weekends as well as providing reminder services through text, emails and social media. These type of changes can lead to fewer missed appointments as well as providing more efficient and effective services.

Information on missed appointments is collected centrally for first outpatient consultation only. There were 145,493 missed first outpatient appointments during the calendar year 2017 - this is from over 1.4 million new outpatient appointments undertaken during the year.

Information is collected centrally for missed appointments for a first outpatient consultations only. The following tables provide information on the number of first outpatient appointments and the number of patients who did not attend a first outpatient appointment for the last five years by NHS Board.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

SPS has a clear zero tolerance approach towards all violence, including sexual assault and staff are trained to recognise and respond to the precursors of violence and manage any incidents when they do occur.

A Cell Sharing Risk Assessment must be conducted before any person in SPS care is allocated to a residential setting. This assessment is used to consider an individual’s suitability to share a cell with others in order to reduce the risk of harm, including interpersonal violence.

The Cell Sharing Risk Assessment is a dynamic process. Records are continually updated in response to changes in circumstance which may impact upon the level of risk presented by an individual. Where any person is identified as presenting a risk to others, then this is recorded and will inform all subsequent management decisions. Any individual who is subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Orderwill also have a dedicated management plan developed and implemented to take into account the conditions applied by the courts.

Violence Reduction meetings take place on a monthly basis across Scottish Prisons to discuss all notable incidents, trends and preventative actions.

CCTV cameras operate within all Scottish prisons to deter violent incidents and assist in any post-incident investigations. Violent incidents are always reported to Police Scotland.

The Scottish Government legislated in the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 to strengthen the taxi and private hire licensing regime, for example by requiring local authorities to appoint civic licensing standards officers, whose role includes supervising compliance. We expect every company and individual to operate within the existing licensing regime, and for all taxi and private hire car drivers, and vehicles, to be licensed. Anyone acting as an unlicensed driver is committing a criminal offence.

While we recognise the potential benefits to taxi and private hire car companies, and to passengers, in using new technology to access services, safety is always of paramount concern. It is clearly not acceptable for users or drivers to suffer from discrimination or violence. Any driver or passenger who believes they may have been the victim of a criminal offence should report the matter to the police, so that the incident can be investigated.

There are no discounts available for island residents on the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) network, operated by CalMac, other than those provided for older and disabled people by national and local concessionary travel schemes.

The introduction of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) across the CHFS network, which was completed in October 2015, simplified the fares structure and provided significant ferry fare reductions for all passengers and for cars and small commercial vehicles. These lower RET fares on the CHFS network are available equally to islands residents, their friends and families and other visitors.

Edinburgh Trams is publicly owned by the City of Edinburgh Council. We are not aware of any analysis having being conducted on the accessibility/affordability of trams for those on low incomes. However, free travel on trams is available to those aged 60+ or with a disability and in receipt of a National Entitlement Card issued by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Our analysis has shown that the reduction in the number of ‘planned’ trains was a direct result of forecast severe weather. The Scottish Government and ScotRail placed an absolute priority on the safety of customers and staff.

More specifically, this means:

* The need to avoid running trains where there was a risk to passenger/staff safety, as the Met Office’s “red warning” for snow had advised, and where there was a risk that a train could end up stranded, because of accumulations of snow and snow drifts.

* Drivers and train crew unable to get to their depots because of ice and snow. In fact, during the period for the Met Office Amber and Red Warnings for snow, the advice consistently given by Police Scotland and the Scottish Government was that people should “Avoid Travel unless absolutely necessary”.

* Before services could resume safely, line proving and in some cases significant snow clearance had to be undertaken. In all cases, services were restored as soon as it was safe to do so.

It may be helpful to clarify responsibilities for the management of roads within Scotland. Transport Scotland is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network including motorways, which is delivered through our operating company contracts. The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads improvement, maintenance and repair with local road authorities.

Our trunk road network is used daily for hundreds of thousands of journeys and is fundamental to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of Scotland. It connects economic centres and remote communities while making a contribution to the wealth of the nation. In order for the trunk road network to fulfil its potential, it is vital that it is efficiently maintained. That is why despite the current financial constraints, £368.7 m was allocated for the management and maintenance of trunk roads and motorways for 2017-18 and £433 m has been allocated for 2018-19.

Road safety is of paramount importance to the Scottish Government and the Strategic Road Safety Plan sets out how Transport Scotland delivers road safety on the trunk road network. In 2016, we updated the Road Safety Plan to refocus our work on further reducing the numbers of accidents and casualties on our network. The refreshed Plan reinforces our use of a “Safe System” approach within the road transport system which is centred on the premise that death and injury is unacceptable and that they are avoidable. This refresh builds upon that approach to more clearly address risk mitigation and focus particular efforts on addressing the safety of vulnerable road users. It includes an Action Plan aligned with the five pillars of the “Safe System” approach and identifies how the work of Transport Scotland’s Strategic Road Safety Unit will contribute to the Government’s casualty reduction targets for 2020

In terms of trunk road maintenance, our operating companies have a contractual obligation to inspect the trunk road network at 7-day intervals. These inspections are primarily to identify defects that require prompt attention (Category 1 defects) because they present, or could present, an immediate hazard to road users. For road surface Category 1 defects, the operating companies are required to carry out temporary repairs by 6am the following morning and permanent repairs within 28 days.

Lesser defects and general deterioration which do not necessitate such an immediate safety-led response are then considered with findings from our annual condition assessments of the network to help determine future maintenance schemes. These include assessments of the strength of the road depth and also road surface conditions (including skid resistance). Resultant schemes may include localised patching repairs or larger maintenance schemes, which are then considered against competing priorities across the trunk road network and programmed accordingly.

Since 2009 we have also been undertaking annual surveys of a representative sample of road users to identify trunk road issues that are important to them and the levels of service they expect or desire. This allows us to gauge current levels of satisfaction and compare and trend current and past levels of satisfaction in order to identify areas for improvement.

With regard to local roads, the vast majority of funding from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities. The Scottish Government has allocated over £10.4 billion to local government for 2017-18. In 2018-19, councils will receive funding through the local government finance settlement of £10.7 billion. This will provide a further real terms boost in both revenue and capital funding.

As a result of the recent adverse weather, the Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay MSP, announced on 6 April that a further £10 million would be made available to local authorities following the recent heavy snowfalls. It is my understanding that COSLA is currently engaging with local authorities to decide how the funding should be allocated.

The Scottish Government is also committed to working with local government to help improve the condition and safety of all roads, and we do this through the Road Collaboration Programme (RCP) which is jointly funded between national and local government. The RCP has liaised with local authorities and established regional groups via the Governance First project. This project continues to support groups of regional local authorities to discuss and develop a collaborative governance arrangement from which to oversee delivery of collaborative roads service activity across the partnerships.

Through this forum we are fully supportive of on-going local authority efforts to form regional partnerships to explore how their resources can be combined to best manage the condition and safety of their networks.