Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has agreed to offer HIV Scotland £231,000 over the next three years. This funding will support the organisation to move to a sustainable financial position. The Scottish Government’s grant offer to HIV Scotland brings the total financial support for third sector organisations working in organisations working to address the issues associated with sexual health and blood borne viruses in Scotland to £2.13 million in the period 2018-21.

NHS Projections are published at national level, broken down by main staff group and NHS Board. No further breakdown of staff groups is available.

Over the next four years we are investing £35 million to recruit 800 additional mental health workers in key settings including A&Es, GP practices, every police station custody suite, and prisons.

The single most important driver of quality in a child’s Out of School Care experience is a dedicated, highly skilled, and well-qualified workforce. Initial and continued training enables managers and staff to fulfil their own potential, and support our children to do the same. Graduate level qualifications, collectively recognised through the Childhood Practice award and based on the benchmark Standard for Childhood Practice , are one of the first work-based awards in Scotland where entry is based on practice qualifications and experience gained in role. Revised in 2015, the award is offered through a variety of flexible options, and designed to be completed in post with support from employers to facilitate continued earning.

The recorded rise in Acute Kidney Injury has been the subject of a number of detailed audits at individual patient level across Health Boards in Scotland. The reason for the recorded rise is thought to be multi-factorial and the reasons include the following:

• Pre-operative factors such as medication and co-morbidities
• Changes in coding practice over the observed time period
• Lack of a common definition for what represents Renal Failure
• Changes to anaesthetic protocols
• Reduced administration of intravenous fluids in the perioperative period.
• Changes to antibiotic protocols to antibiotics that are potentially more toxic to the kidneys.
• An increased number of patients on drugs for hypertension and other conditions that have an effect on renal function (case complexity).
• Changes to the Urological management of benign prostatic hypertrophy in men (more drug treatment and less surgical treatment) which may result in increased rates of post-operative urinary retention.
• NHS patients whose surgery is undertaken in the private sector are not consistently recorded in the national dataset; they may represent the fitter patients for surgery.

The local audits also show that the deteriorations in renal function was small and rapidly corrected in the vast majority of cases. There is no requirement for renal replacement therapy. The length of stay in patients who developed acute kidney injury was increased, but there was no increase in 30 day mortality or readmissions. Also many patients were admitted on drugs –to treat other conditions – that are known to affect renal function as well as some patients who are already known to have chronic renal failure.

There are improvements that have been made in the peri-operative care of patients to minimise the risk of acute kidney injury. These include the management of neprotoxic drugs and fluid balance, early identification of urinary retention, flexibility in enhanced recovery protocols to allow for the multiply co-morbidity of at risk patients. The Orthopaedic and Anaesthetic Community with help from the Scottish Arthroplasty Projects continues to monitored this closely and ensure that good practice is shared nationally.

The Directors of Planning Thrombectomy Advisory Group are progressing development of a National Planning Framework for the provision of thrombectomy for stroke in Scotland. It is anticipated the framework will be completed by spring 2019.

The framework will be presented to the National Planning Board (NPB) and follow due process for the planning of NHS Scotland services.

Six derelict town centre buildings providing 75 units were brought back into use through the Town Centre Housing Fund in 2013-14. The breakdown per unit is:

Angus Council, Commonwealth House, Carnoustie - 4 units social rent

Clackmannanshire Council, Ann Street, Tillicoultry - 17 units social rent

East Dunbartonshire Council, 85 Townhead - 15 units social rent

Castlerock Edinvar Housing Association, 22-24 Bridge Street, Tranent - 7 units social rent

Fife Council, County Buildings, Cupar - 18 units (14 social rent, 4 intermediate rent)

Kingdom Housing Association, Former Crown Hotel, Crieff - 14 units social rent

£2.7m was allocated to the Town Centre Housing Fund in 2013-14 as a one year only fund. £2.55m was spent from this budget as one project did not proceed.

Performance data has been published for performance years 2014-15 and 2015-16. In 2014-15, 6,362 people were referred for post-diagnostic support. All of the other information requested is currently on the Scotland Perform’s website, including the equivalent estimated percentage of people newly diagnosed with dementia referred for post-diagnostic support in performance years 2014-15 and 2015-16 https://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/NHSScotlandperformance/Dementia-LDP . Data for performance year 2013/14 was not of sufficient quality to publish.

The Scottish Government does not collect or publish this information. Integration Joint Boards are responsible for designing, commissioning and delivering dementia post-diagnostic services. The Scottish Government wants to go faster to extend post-diagnostic support and we are working with national and local partners to improve the consistency and quality of and access to the service, as well as the quality of data.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.