Chamber and committees

A number of methods are used to raise awareness and encourage the reporting of female genital mutilation (FGM) including engaging with individuals and minority ethnic women’s organisations such as Dignity Alert Research Forum (DARF), Saheliya and Shakti Women’s Aid, all of who provide services to women who come from communities affected by FGM.

The Government also works in partnership with health professionals, voluntary organisations, social services, education departments and the police to support victims, engage with communities for the prevention of FGM, and to share good practice and promote awareness across Scotland for the prevention of FGM.

Scottish Government is providing funding to the Scottish Refugee Council and the Women’s Support Project, to carry out a project to produce a baseline of information which will inform work to tackle female genital mutilation. We will be looking closely at all findings and recommendations from that report (due for publication September 2014) to ensure that what we are doing and what we are developing meets our shared objective of tackling FGM.

FGM is addressed within the violence against women policy area and will be included in the Violence Against Women Strategy that is currently being developed and scheduled for publication summer 2014.

Twelve of the fourteen Territorial NHS boards report that they do not offer dedicated specialist services for women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM). Of the boards that offer specialist services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have two clinical staff within Plastic Surgery based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary who provide defibulation (reconstruction/reversal) services for women who have undergone FGM. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde also has a link midwife who specialises in supporting asylum seekers and refugees. This role helps ensure that the clinical and emotional needs of women who have undergone FGM are addressed during and following pregnancy, including supporting them to access defibulation services and educating and advising midwifery staff on best practice on FGM.

NHS Lanarkshire have a specialist gender-based violence trauma service that works with women who have experienced FGM and other forms of violence against women. This includes specialist advocacy and therapeutic services.

The Scottish Government expects the 2014-20 structural funds programmes to launch in summer 2014.

The Scottish Government has extended a number of projects into 2014, in particular employability projects where the third sector has a significant delivery role, in order to minimise any funding gap.

If any underspends emerge, the Scottish Government will consider additional extensions where these are required.

There is no delay in allocating EU funding for 2014-20.

The regulations governing how these funds can be allocated and spent were laid in December 2013, and the Scottish Government expects to start structural funds programmes in early summer of 2014, with the rural development programme following in early 2015. This is in line with the other EU and UK nations, and the expectations of the commission.

The Scottish Government expects the 2014-20 structural funds programmes to launch in early summer 2014. The Scottish Government has extended a number of projects into 2014, in particular employability projects where the third sector has a significant delivery role, to minimise any potential funding gaps. The Scottish Government will continue to monitor the situation and timescales closely to ensure that projects which will be expected to continue into the next programmes can continue to operate until the new programmes launch.

The Scottish Government has been working with partners for more than two years to develop strategic projects, schemes or programmes which could be supported from EU structural funds in 2014-20. The formal allocation of funding to these strategic interventions can begin when the programmes launch in summer 2014.

Funding for different interventions will start at different times, depending on the availability of match funding, the complexity of the proposal and the demand for a particular type of activity.

The programmes will have a mid-term review to determine whether the strategic interventions remain the best way to allocate the funding, and changes or further allocations may be made at this stage to ensure maximum uptake and impact of the funds.

The licensing, safety and efficacy of medicines is currently a reserved matter and is taken forward by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on a UK-wide basis. Decisions on whether or not to prescribe a specific medicine are for the clinician in discussion with the patient. If a medicine has a marketing authorisation (license), then it can be prescribed.

Safety advice and updates on medicines are issued by the MHRA as required and the Scottish Government ensures that, where necessary, such advice is disseminated to health professionals in Scotland. Advice on side effects, benefits and risks of treatment and how to prescribe medicines are included in patient information leaflets, which are available in each pack of medicine, and summaries of product characteristics which are published on the MHRA website and updated as new information becomes available.

Information about the prescription of antidepressant medication can be found in the Medicines for Mental Health publication from September 2013: http://www.isdscotland.org/Publications/index.asp. In Scotland a total of 747,158 patients received treatment with an antidepressant in 2012-13.

Data on the total number of patients dispensed an antidepressant should be interpreted with great caution, it does not equate to people being treated for depression. This is because many drugs classified as antidepressants can also be used for conditions other than depression; including neuropathic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders.

Information on numbers experiencing withdrawal symptoms and being treated for withdrawal symptoms from antidepressant medication is not held centrally.

People experiencing withdrawal from antidepressant medication would be expected to be under the care of a general practitioner or psychiatrist and any problems would be discussed and managed.

General practitioners and other clinicians prescribe according to the British National Formulary and report reactions to prescribed medication (including withdrawal symptoms) through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Clinicians can access information about reactions to prescribed medication on the MHRA website:

http://www.mhra.gov.uk/#page=DynamicListMedicines.

Training modules for clinicians can also be accessed through this website.