Chamber and committees

We recognise the important role of housing in improving outcomes, particularly for people with long term conditions and complex needs and to support independent living in the community. Legislation will be introduced to Parliament before summer, that will place health boards and local authorities under a duty to work in collaboration with key stakeholders to plan and deliver nationally agreed outcomes, and we would expect these to include the housing sector.

National guidance on the development of strategic commissioning plans for health and social care includes a requirement for local partnerships to ensure that the housing sector is included in the planning process. The Housing Contribution Statement is a key part of the strategic commissioning plan. It provides a clear basis to strengthen links between housing and health and social care, and will also help local partnerships to make best use of housing services, such as adaptations.

It is not possible to identify the discrete cost of providing the chronic medication service. The chronic medication service is operationally integrated within the way in which community pharmacists deliver NHS pharmaceutical services.

Disease-specific information is not recorded for registration purposes.

The Chronic Medication Service (CMS) is offered in some 1,240 community pharmacies across the 14 territorial health boards in Scotland.

All qualified pharmacists in Scotland are trained to provide the key aspects of pharmaceutical care that underpin the CMS. Pharmacists are the experts in medicines and their undergraduate education prepares them to become healthcare professionals who have a strong grounding in the practice of pharmaceutical care which supports them in delivering pharmaceutical services such as the CMS.

CMS formalises the role of community pharmacists in supporting patients with long term conditions. It improves the patient’s care through a systematic approach to their pharmaceutical care, makes better use of the pharmacist’s skills and expertise to improve the patient’s understanding of their medicines, and helps maximise the clinical outcomes from their therapy. CMS also facilitates and supports the pharmacist’s role as defined by the professional body.

Information on the number of patients medically fit for discharge, but who are delayed awaiting the next stage of their care, is published in a quarterly census.

Figures from the January 2013 Delayed Discharge quarterly census are available on the NHS Information Services Division website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Health-and-Social-Community-Care/Publications/.

The Scottish Government is doing all it can, within the current constitutional settlement, to mitigate the worst impacts of the UK Government cuts and changes to the welfare system.

We are taking action and investing more to support people and organisations across Scotland. This includes: providing £7.9 million for advice and support services, of which £2.5 million is directly for social landlords to help those affected by the bedroom tax; an additional £9.2 million for the new Scottish Welfare Fund, giving a total Fund of £33 million, allowing us to award an extra 5,600 Community Care Grants and an additional 100,000 Crisis Grants; and we have also provided, with our partners in local government, a total of £40 million in 2013-14 to ensure that around 560,000 people in Scotland who previously received Council Tax Benefit are protected from the UK Government’s 10% cut in funding for successor arrangements.

We have not made any estimate of how many claims will be made for community care grants or crisis grants in 2013-14 at local authority level.

This information has been published on our webpages:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/welfarereform/scottishwelfarefund/background.

We do not have any information about the number of claims for community care grants, and crisis loans in 2012-2013. Information on the number of claims for community care grants and crisis loans for previous years has been published by the Department for Work and Pensions on its webpages at:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130107093842/http://www.dwp.gov.uk/local-authority-staff/social-fund-reform/localisation-data/

The Scottish Government considers the council tax to be unfair and have committed to freezing the tax for the duration of this Parliament to support hard pressed households. We will consult with others to produce a fairer local tax based on ability to pay later in this Parliament.