Chamber and committees

The following public agencies are connected to the eCare Framework: North Ayrshire Council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Aberdeenshire Council, Angus Council, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Western Isles, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside. These agencies are at different stages of implementation of its usage with front line staff.

Data Sharing Partnerships, based in each of the 14 health board geographies, were established in 2006, to drive implementation locally. The DSPs worked, both with each other and with Scottish Government policy teams and the eCare Programme Team, to encourage the use of eCare to effectively support policy and business requirements.

The information requested is not available centrally.

Obtaining better data on neurological conditions in order to improve service planning and quality is central to the Implementation and Improvement Support Plan which NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has published to accompany its clinical standards for neurological health services.

NHS boards in Tayside, Grampian, Ayrshire and Arran, and Western Isles are currently connected to eCare, for the sharing of information with their partner agencies. These agencies are at different stages of implementation of its usage with front line staff.

Five other health board areas are moving towards connection to eCare: NHS boards in Fife, Highland, Forth Valley, Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway.

NHS Lanarkshire already take part in multi-agency information sharing, using locally developed eCare technology solutions, which will interact with the national eCare, in the future.

NHS Greater and Glasgow and Clyde are involved in pilot proof of concept work for eCare.

NHS Lothian are considering their options following the award of the national Patient Management System (PMS) contract, to Intersystems TRAK, which is a system which NHS Lothian already use. The PMS contract includes connection to eCare as a core component.

NHS Shetland have plans in place to procure a community health system, which will be able to connect to eCare.

NHS Orkney have a joint-working solution with their council partner, and are currently evaluating the need to connect this to the national eCare system, based on local business requirements.

There have been some delays in health engaging with eCare, for two main reasons: lack of community-based health systems to support the electronic recording of Single Shared Assessments, and a perceived divergence of eCare''s functionality from local business needs.

The emergence of systems like NHS Tayside''s MiDIS have served to address the first point, and work is currently underway across the eCare Programme to address the second.

An evaluation for the most recent implementation, in the Grampian Data Sharing Partnership, is currently in development, and should be available by June 2010.

Local authorities have a duty to provide or commission community care services in line with their local commissioning strategy. Updated draft guidance on social care procurement has been developed in consultation with service providers and promotes collaboration between local authorities and service providers. We are not aware of any charge being levied by local authorities on service providers as part of the commissioning process.

The guidance can be accessed on the Scottish Government''s website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/13125045/0.

COSLA will publish its 2010-11 guidance on charging for non-residential social care services later this month. They are also in the process of establishing an online facility to allow councils to benchmark their own charging policies. In addition, there will be a public-facing website that will allow members of the public to look at each council''s charging policy within a single site.

We continue to support the aim of the COSLA guidance and will continue to work with COSLA in joint partnership to achieve greater consistency, whilst allowing for local authority discretion in ensuring that charges are reasonable for each individual client.

Standard 1 of the NHS Quality Improvement Scotland clinical standards for neurological health services highlights the importance of consistent and ongoing data collection to allow NHS boards to monitor and review service provision on an ongoing basis for the purpose of service improvement. To promote consistency, a Neurological Services Data and Audit Group has been set up to identify and agree a common dataset for all neurological services.

An early priority for NHS QIS is to develop the measures that will demonstrate the extent to which the standards are being achieved. This is likely to involve both the use of local tracking systems and existing national data sources, identifying new ones where required.

In addition, NHS QIS will work with the Information Services Division of NHS National Services Scotland and the Neurological Alliance of Scotland to review the information available in the Multiple Sclerosis Register, set up with government provided funding of £70,000, for its use as a potential data source.

Precise figures are not available.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland in the introduction to its clinical standards for neurological health services refers to estimates that 10 million people in the UK live with some form of neurological condition that has an impact on their lives. The Neurological Alliance of Scotland estimates that the figure for Scotland would be around 1 million people.

In Scotland, there are around 40,000 people with epilepsy, 300 people with Motor Neurone Disease and 10,000 people with Parkinson''s Disease at any one time.

Data on the range of treatments for heart disease are provided in the Coronary Heart Disease section of the Information Services Division Website:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5780.html.

The website includes data on:

prescriptions for cardiovascular diseases;

operations;

hospital admissions, and

consultations relating to heart disease with either a GP or a practice nurse.