Chamber and committees

In Scotland the number of people with a diagnosis of dementia - including Alzheimer’s disease - and the number of people dying of dementia has risen as our population ages, and the rates of diagnosis have improved partly due to a greater awareness of getting a timely diagnosis. The Scottish Government commissioned a report last year which assessed, for the first time, estimated and projected annual diagnosed incidence for dementia rising to 20,000 by 2020. Scotland is not alone in experiencing a considerable rise in dementia-related deaths in recent years. In addition, part of the increase is attributable to the introduction by The National Records of Scotland (NRS) of new software to code deaths and adoption of a more recent World Health Organisation (WHO) update to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). This has resulted in some deaths previously assigned to respiratory causes being allocated to dementia. This development brings Scotland into line with Official National Statistics (ONS), therefore making our mortality figures more comparable with those for England and Wales and further afield.

The Scottish Government published a third three year National Dementia Strategy in June, including an enhanced focus on palliative and end of life care. The strategy builds on our progress over the last ten years in transforming services and improving outcomes for people with dementia, their families and carers. It sets out
21 commitments and provides a framework for further action to ensure the realisation of our shared vision for people with dementia and their carers.

The Scottish Government provides funding to a wide range of organisations that provide support for male victims of sexual abuse, both in terms of specific services for victims of sexual abuse and more general victim support services.

Support for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse

The provision of support services for survivors of childhood abuse is the responsibility of local Health and Social Care Partnerships. However, the Scottish Government works alongside statutory, voluntary and third sector organisations to build greater capacity and capability to address the needs of all survivors. The Scottish Government’s Survivor Support Innovation and Development Fund has made available £1,800,000 for 2017-18. This includes an award of £40,000 to Speak Out Scotland, a voluntary organisation that supports and assists in improving the lives and wellbeing of male survivors of childhood sexual assault. Through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund (CYPFEIF), the Scottish Government is providing £25,000 to the Moira Anderson Foundation in 2017-18 to support their work with victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Support for Victims of Rape and Sexual Abuse

The Scottish Government will provide funding of £1,204,000 to Rape Crisis Scotland in 2017-18, which is used to fund 14 local rape crisis centres, a Rape Crisis Helpline and to enable Rape Crisis Scotland to provide a strategic approach to tackling rape and sexual assault. Rape Crisis Scotland provides support services for people who have been raped or sexually abused, regardless of sex or gender – this breadth of service was reflected in their recent “I Just Froze Campaign”, funded by the Scottish Government, to increase public understanding of responses to rape.

Support for Victims of Sexual Exploitation

The CYPFEIF will provide £300,000 to Barnardo’s Scotland in 2017-18 to strengthen capacity to tackle child sexual exploitation in Scotland, including the exploitation of boys and young men. Funding supports awareness raising of child sexual exploitation in both schools and the community, direct support for children at risk of, or who have experienced, child sexual exploitation, as well as helping to progress a number of actions within the National Action Plan to Prevent and Tackle Child Sexual Exploitation.

The Scottish Government will also provide funding of £465,454 to Migrant Help in 2017-18. Migrant Help supports adults who have been trafficked for the purposes of any form of exploitation, including men who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation. The support package provided by Migrant Help includes access to safe accommodation and material assistance, as well as help to access information and specialised care such as medical treatment and counselling. Victims are also provided with access to translation, interpretation, legal services and help to access compensation. Psychological services are provided to victims via the ANCHOR project, which is a service provided by Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board and funded via an additional grant payment of £70,000 for 2017-18 from the Scottish Government.

General Victim Support

Funding of £4,217,000 will be provided to Victim Support Scotland by the Scottish Government in 2017-18. Victim Support Scotland provides support and information services to over 200,000 people affected by crime each year, including victims of sexual abuse.

With regard to younger victims, Childline (operated by the NSPCC) will receive £313,200 of funding from the Scottish Government to provide confidential advice and information to children, young people and families affected by all issues, including sexual abuse, and for specific projects to increase access to vital support for children and young people.

Our Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion found that the public are not clear what is meant by hate crime and therefore many instances of hate crime can go unreported. We are working in partnership with stakeholders to develop a campaign which will increase awareness of what hate crime is among victims and bystanders in Scotland, how to recognise it and how to report it.

Once the details of the campaign have been finalised an appropriate evaluation will be conducted and published on the Scottish Government website once available.

This Government is clear that any form of hate crime is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We would encourage anyone who either experiences or witnesses any form of hate crime to report it immediately to the Police either directly or via a third party reporting centre.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government continues to support improved cancer access performance across NHS Scotland. £2.85m funding was distributed to NHS boards in June 2017 using the Scottish Resource Allocation Formula.

Scottish Government expects Health Boards and Integration Authorities to ensure adequate mental health care and treatment is available for their populations. This applies to community and hospital treatment. Generally these are provided as locally as possible within the Board / Authority area but there are exceptions where people are treated out of area. The reasons for out of area treatment are generally to allow access to highly specialist regional or national treatment tailored to specific individuals. For inpatients there are occasions where patients require admission out of area due to temporary bed unavailability but attempts are always made to minimise this.

Out-patient activity is reported by ISD. Inpatient activity is also subject to regular ISD reporting and an annual moment-in-time census. Health Boards wishing to use non NHS Scotland NHS beds access these through the National Services Division of NHS NSS who monitor these placements. Health Boards may also wish to use private non NHS facilities but they are not required to report this use on an on-going basis. The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland is informed of all detained patients and detention certificates include information on the site of admission. Cross Border transfers of detained patients are subject to Ministerial approval.

Beyond this data collection Scottish Government does not intend making the recording of data by NHS Boards on where mental health patients are being treated a statutory requirement.

National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:

2014-15 - 4 patients

2015-16 – 3 patients

2016-17 – 2 patients

Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.

This information is not gathered centrally.

Awareness of child and adolescent mental health in schools has been improved by, amongst other things, our commitment to encouraging the establishment of explicit links between schools and child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) specialists as well as the development of a web-based toolkit (http://handsonscotland.co.uk) aimed at improving the confidence of teachers and others in responding to the mental health needs of children.

We take child and adolescent mental health very seriously. Our new 10-year Mental Health Strategy was published on 30 March, and sets out our vision to improve mental health in Scotland. A key section in the Strategy deals with prevention and early intervention. That section outlines our ambition that every child and young person should have appropriate access to emotional and mental well-being support in school. The very first action in the Strategy commits to a review of PSE, the role of pastoral guidance in local authority schools, and services for counselling for children and young people

National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:

2014-15 - 4 patients

2015-16 – 3 patients

2016-17 – 2 patients

Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government continues to support improved cancer access performance across NHS Scotland.

Our Cancer Strategy commits to investing an additional £2 million per annum in a new Diagnostics Fund to support swift access to diagnostics for people with suspected cancer. The funding announced in June 2017 includes a proportion of funding from the cancer strategy.