Chamber and committees

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government do not provide NHS boards with additional funding for HIV treatment costs. NHS boards pay for HIV drug treatments, as with other treatments, from their overall allocations.

The Scottish Government has not announced a review of the National Care Standards. I am giving consideration to such a review in the context of work on the integration of health and social care services, new models of care and the implementation of the dementia standards and will keep the Parliament informed.

Local government is fully committed to the preventative spend approach and to making an appropriate financial contribution to the Change Fund.

The expenditure in total across the spending review period is £272 million for the Early Years Change Fund.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03568 on 8 November 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Sir Ian Kennedy’s report on the recent review of paediatric cardiac surgery at Yorkhill Hospital is awaited. I will consider publication in due course.

Yes. The PVG scheme strikes a balance between proportionate protection and robust regulation and makes it easier for individual employers to determine who they might safely employ.

The Care Inspectorate does not collect data on emergency hospital admissions from care homes. The Care Inspectorate will, however, investigate in circumstances where an emergency hospital admission resulted in a complaint which identified concerns about the care practices leading up to that admission. Further, if the admission was notified to the Care Inspectorate as a significant incident in line with the legal requirements on notifications by providers the Care Inspectorate would consider whether additional enquiries were necessary.

More widely, as part of the intelligence-led approach, the Care Inspectorate is currently examining what data, including statistics on overall levels of emergency admissions, should form part of the systematic evidence base that informs the decisions it takes on the planning and handling of inspections.

Statistics on average or maximum length of time between the Care Inspectorate issuing an improvement notice and carrying out a follow-up inspection are not collected as each notice is unique to the service it is served on.

Each improvement has a time specified within the notice that should be a reasonable time to allow the improvement to be made. The Care Inspectorate inspects at the earliest date possible after the time period specified in the Improvement Notice has passed. There may be a number of inspections arising from an Improvement Notice and public reports made available following these. The Care inspectorate would expect an action plan in response to the Improvement Notice and this would be taken into account when planning any inspection to validate compliance.

The Care Inspectorate can also make application to the sheriff for cancellation of the registration of a care service on the basis that unless the order is made “there will be a serious risk to the life, health or wellbeing of persons”. The sheriff has the power to make an interim order, which may include an order suspending registration pending a full hearing. If necessary, the Care Inspectorate can also impose an emergency condition of registration, which becomes effective immediately and remains in place until removed or successfully challenged on appeal.

The Care Inspectorate does not collect data on emergency hospital admissions from care homes.

The Scottish Government is responsible for the development of national procurement policy and guidance in Scotland. NHS National Services Scotland’s National Procurement Division (NHS National Procurement) sits on the National Policy Forum providing input to the development of policy and guidance.

NHS National Procurement support the dissemination of that policy and guidance across NHS health boards.

NHS National Procurement provide advice and contract solutions to all NHSScotland organisations. NHS National Procurement has responsibility for identifying collaborative procurement opportunities across all NHS boards and works collaboratively with the Scottish Government in the development and roll out of cross public sector contracts to all NHS Scotland organisations.