Chamber and committees

The Scottish Driving Assessment Service (SDAS), located at the Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh, undertakes driving assessments for those who have been affected by a stroke or any other condition which results in them having to be assessed as fit for driving. Appointments for assessment are provided free under the NHS and are requested through referrals from General Practitioners and secondary care.

In the last year - from May 2017 to April 2018 - 846 new/re-referred patients were seen by the SDAS. Of these, 62 patients (7.3% of the total) waited longer than ‎18 weeks.

The SDAS is striving to return to the 100% 18 week compliance it has previously achieved since centralising the service.

The Scottish Driving Assessment Service (SDAS), located at the Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh, undertakes assessments for those who have been affected by a stroke or any other condition which results in them having to be reassessed as fit for driving.

Appointments for assessment are provided free under the NHS and are requested through referrals from General Practitioners and secondary care. The SDAS has not historically offered to reimburse travel expenses for patients who are attending for assessment: some NHS Boards may have their own arrangements for reimbursing patients’ travel expenses and costs. The Scottish Government does not provide assistance to those travelling to the SDAS for assessment.

The Scottish Driving Assessment Service (SDAS), undertakes assessments for those who have been affected by a stroke or any other condition which results in them having to be reassessed as fit for driving.

The decision to concentrate the SDAS into a single national centre in Edinburgh was made by NHS Boards’ Directors of Planning in 2013; this delivery model was implemented in April 2015.

For the 5 year period between 1st April 2009 and 31st March 2014 (i.e. when the mobile service was still in operation), the average number of assessments carried out per year (including new/re-referred and review) was 725.

Data for 1st April 2014 to 31st March 2015 is not included as during this time the mobile service was being scaled down in preparation for the fully centralised service.

Between 1st April 2015 and 31st March 2018 (i.e. following the transition to a fully centralised service), the average number of assessments per year was 882.

The number of assessments has therefore increased by 157 (i.e. 21.7%) per year (averaged over the respective five and three year periods) since the service was centralised.

The decision to concentrate the Scottish Driving Assessment Service (SDAS) into a single national centre in Edinburgh was made by NHS Scotland Boards’ Directors of Planning in 2013 and endorsed by Board Chief Executives.

Planning and delivery of the SDAS is a matter for NHS Boards and the Scottish Government has no plans to review the delivery of the service, and recognises increased capacity and improvement in equity of access.

One of the ambitions in our Mental Health Strategy (2017-27) is that training in first aid approaches for mental health should become as common as physical first aid. The Scottish Government funds NHS Health Scotland to provide a range of programmes to improve mental health, including Scottish Mental Health First Aid (SMHFA) training. We are committed to continuing support for this work, and in our engagement paper on suicide prevention, which we published on 8 March 2018, we outlined a draft action on the development of a new mental health and suicide prevention training programme.

The Scottish Government funds NHS Health Scotland to provide a range of programmes to improve mental health, including Scottish Mental Health First Aid (SMHFA) training. We are committed to continuing support for this work, and in our engagement paper on suicide prevention, which we published on 8 March 2018, we outlined a draft action on the development of a new mental health and suicide prevention training programme. The question of a mobile friendly Mental Health First Aid site will be considered as part of the proposed development of a training programme.

Question S5W-14907 was answered on 16 April 2018.

The options available to practices responding to the Primary Care Workforce Survey to record the length the time that posts were vacant for were; Less than 3 months; 3 to 6 months; Over 6 months. The survey did not collect further detail on the length of time that posts were vacant there for.

The Scottish Government recently announced a commitment to increasing the number of GPs by at least 800 over ten years to ensure a sustainable service that meets the increasing demand on our services. Our strategy to recruit and retain our existing GPs will be set out in part 3 of the national health and social care workforce plan, which will be published in the near future.

The plan provides detail on the modelling work undertaken to estimate the number of GPs likely to be in the workforce over the next 10 years. Considering the age and gender of the current workforce, the number that typically leave and join the profession on an annual basis and taking account of increased part-time working.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. The options available to practices responding to the Primary Care Workforce Survey to record the length the time that posts were vacant for were; Less than 3 months; 3 to 6 months; Over 6 months. The survey did not collect further detail on the length of time that posts were vacant.