Chamber and committees

A full account of the lessons learned between the parties concerned will be provided by NHS Ayrshire and Arran in papers going to the Board’s Audit Committee in early November 2011.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s prime concern is to ensure continuation of high quality healthcare service delivery at East Ayrshire Community Hospital. Discussions have commenced on a schedule of rectification work that will have minimal disruption to existing services and in the shortest possible timescale.

Plans for full reinstatement work require agreement with the Special Purpose Vehicle parent company, BAM PPP, and the funding bank, the Ahli United Bank. It is intended to secure all-party agreement to full re-instatement of the previous ward complement.

Section two of the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Act 2010 will be commenced in full on 1 October 2011.

The Scottish Government's guidance on the Procurement of Care and Support Services explicitly states that, when procuring such services, greater emphasis should be placed on quality rather than cost. Compliance with this requirement should mean that decisions are never based on price alone.

Scottish Government is not aware of any capital projects, other than that at the East Ayrshire Community Hospital PFI, where BAM Construct UK’s has a contractual funding relationship with the Ahli United Bank.

The projected cost of work on the project incurred by NHS Ayrshire and Arran is £758,381.

Within the above cost, £146,727 was spent on permanent improvements to facilities. Of direct benefit to the Frail Elderly and Elderly Mental Health’s Pennelburn and Holmburn Wards were building alterations, including door widening and floor improvements. Also included in the cost of the permanent improvements were additional car parking spaces and changes to the kitchen.

With the exception of paediatric cardiac transplantation, a full range of paediatric cardiac surgery services is provided in Scotland by Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow.

In addition, where it is necessary due to rarity and/or complexity, a very few children may require to be referred to relevant centre(s) in England. In such exceptional cases care is jointly shared between the relevant service and Yorkhill.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that the overtime budget since 2007-08 has been:

It is important to note that these figures cannot be compared on a like for like basis. Prior to 2008-09, the budget associated with covering vacancies was included in the basic pay budget. However, as vacancies are covered on overtime, since 2008-09 this provision has been included in the overtime budget. Also in 2009-10, the overtime budget was increased to backfill for 40 additional staff to be trained in specialist operational response procedures.

The budget for 2011-12 is currently £4,363,000 but this figure is subject to revision over the course of the year. The Scottish Ambulance Service are continuing to make every effort to reduce overtime across the service.

The Safe and Sustainable Programme’s review of paediatric cardiac surgery services in England was subject to full public consultation which took place earlier this year. Interested groups, organisations and individuals from across the UK had the opportunity to submit their views during that period.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-02389 on 27 September 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/Apps2/MAQASearch/QAndMSearch.aspx.