Chamber and committees

The public interest cases contained in the published information within the report provided by the Whistleblowing Alert and Advice services for NHSScotland, reflect the exact number of whistleblowing cases raised with them. These are as follows:

- From 1 August 2017 to 31 January 2018- 22 cases

- From 1 February 2018 to 31 July 2018 -16 cases

- From 1 August 2018 to 31 January 2019 34 cases

- From 1 February 2019 to 31 October 2019 -26 cases

I can confirm that the Chief Medical Officer wrote again to Dr Veronikis last week, to re-iterate an invitation to visit Scotland in the spring. It is intended that this visit be observational in nature for reasons I outlined in Parliament on 27 February, i.e. so that Dr Veronikis can experience the environment in which he would be operating, including theatre list, pre- and post-operative processes, the use of multi-disciplinary teams, and consent processes. As such, Dr Veronikis will not be expected to formally consult with patients during this initial visit.

We await Dr Veronikis' response, and we remain hopeful that his commitments will still allow him to visit in the spring.

Local authorities have a duty under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to carry out social care support assessments. Any person who feels their quality of life would benefit from social care support can request a social care support assessment. This includes any person with mild cognitive impairment or with dementia. This request can be made by the person themselves, members of their family, carers, friends or from their medical practitioners.

Registration is devolved, and the setting of fees for registration matters – including charges for extracts from the Birth and Death Registers (birth certificates and death certificates) – is the responsibility of the Registrar General for Scotland subject to the approval of Scottish Ministers. Certificate fees are kept under regular review and set on a cost-recovery basis.

More widely, the UK Gender Recognition Panel charges £140 to applicants seeking a gender recognition certificate, including those resident in Scotland. Applicants can apply for help to pay these fees if they receive certain benefits or are on a low income.

The Scottish Government is not aware of an eating disorder support service called SPIRE.

The Scottish Government is working with Information Services Division (ISD) on a number of actions to improve the data that is collected regarding referrals to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and to adult services.

A new core dataset has been developed, which includes diagnosis, diagnosis date and the start date of treatment or intervention. ISD is now working with all Boards to put in place a robust collection mechanism that will provide this core dataset at an individual patient level. As this dataset will be able to be broken down by diagnosis, we would expect a significant improvement in the data that is available regarding eating disorders.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-27297 on 4 March 2020 which outlines the numbers of people who have been admitted with an eating disorder diagnosis1 by health board of treatment, per year (January- December) 2013 - 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Comparison per head of population between Scotland, England and Wales is provided in the following table.

Comparison of admissions to Scotland, England and Wales for people with an eating disorder diagnosis per 100,000 for Financial Year 2018-19.

Since the launch of the ECHO peer coaching service during Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2019 there have been 188 hours of support provided to parents and carers of those with an eating disorder. The service has supported 20 parents and carers since February 2019.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Health Scotland to prepare for this season’s flu public marketing campaign, which is likely to include TV and radio advertising as well as posters, leaflets and other support materials to help raise public awareness.