Chamber and committees

There are 29 staff in total in the Directorate of Equalities and Planning, comprising three teams:

(i) Planning and Performance Team (three staff) with a remit to provide the corporate planning and performance management function for NHS Health Scotland

(ii) Equalities Development Team (15 staff) with a remit to support all NHS boards in the delivery of programmes to support equality priorities identified by the Scottish Government Health Directorates. These include: race equality in mental health services; national support for translation, interpreting and communications; national support for community engagement; national support for equality impact assessment, and support in equalities data collection, monitoring and reporting.

(iii) Equalities Support Team (10 staff) with a remit to support all NHS boards in the improvement of equalities work within boards, including boards'' compliance with legal equalities duties.

The general remits of individual staff within the directorate are programme or project management or administrative support. All management level staff have specific expertise in one or more equality areas.

The Scottish Government expects NHS boards and clinicians to take full account of Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) and NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) recommendations in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where there is evidence that an SMC or NHS QIS accepted medicine (or its equivalent) is not being made available, or there are undue delays in reaching such decisions, these will continue to be addressed directly with the NHS board concerned in order that appropriate action is taken where necessary.

The decisions of individual clinicians in relation to patient care are a matter of professional judgement in line with clinical need. However, all NHS staff operate within the management framework of their employing organisations.

The Directorate of Equalities and Planning manages two community reference groups, which have 47 members in total. Of these, 25 are individual community members and 22 are representatives of community and voluntary sector organisations.

The National Reference Forum (NRF) (for ethnic minority) and the Disability Reference Group (DRG) provide the perspective of people who are disabled and those from minority ethnic communities on key programmes of work undertaken by NHS Health Scotland.

In August 2009, the directorate established service level agreements with 13 community and voluntary organisations which provide specialist advice to develop programmes that address inequalities in health, eliminate discrimination and promote equality, specifically through our programme of equality impact assessments.

The knowledge and experience of these groups help inform the direction and work of the directorate, as do the views of other stakeholders such as the Scottish Government and NHS boards.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30737 on 26 January 2010. 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/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

In addition NHS Health Scotland is delivering a number of programmes of work which are supporting boards to improve equality of access in the NHS. Examples include:

Supporting NHS boards to engage with disabled people and also help staff to understand the specific needs of people with disabilities, leading to easier access to health services for disabled people;

Hosting a mental health and race equality programme since 2006 to support practitioners to deliver equitable services to ethnic minority individuals and groups;

Commissioning the Black Leadership Network to provide specialist review and capacity building to enable selected NHS boards to improve their race equality schemes;

Providing national project management to support boards to combine their resources and experience in improving the quality and consistency of delivery of interpreting, translation and communication services;

Involving Stonewall Scotland in the planning and delivery of facilitated support for NHS boards on equality in sexual orientation, and

Involving the Scottish Transgender Alliance in workshops on experiences of health services to support boards improve services for transgender people.

The Equalities and Planning Directorate is also working closely with the Better Together National Patient Experience Programme to gather information about the individual experiences of patients using GP and hospital services, disaggregated by equality characteristics.

Responsibility for compliance with legal duties on equality and the elimination of discrimination rests with the individual NHS boards.

Following the publication in 2009 of NHS Health Scotland''s report The Big Picture 2009: A review of progress on equality in the NHS in Scotland the Equalities and Planning Directorate is providing support and working with boards to agree and provide a planned programme of specific actions to help improve on areas where compliance on the equality duties was identified as a concern.

The directorate is also working to support selected boards with a review of their disability schemes. These include: national support for translation, interpreting and communications; national support for community engagement; national support for Equality Impact Assessment; support in equalities data collection, monitoring and reporting.

The Scottish Government can confirm that NHS Health Scotland has decided not to proceed with a contract for an agency to assist them in ensuring there is an understanding of public health issues and campaigns across all stakeholders. These stakeholders include health professionals, the media, members of the public as well as MSPs.

A decision has been taken to carry out all of NHS Health Scotland''s corporate communications activity in-house.

The GP curriculum includes genetics in primary care, such as recessive single gene disorders e.g. haemochromatosis and haemoglobinopathies (thalassaemia). Doctors who are training to be GPs need to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in this area and show that they are competent to manage the primary contact with patients and deal with unselected problems. GPs are also supported by health boards, post graduate deaneries, NHS Education for Scotland and others to undertake continuing professional development to acquire up-to-date knowledge and skills to address the needs of their patients. Scottish Government Officials have offered to attend the next meeting of the Haemochromatosis Society in Scotland to discuss raising awareness of the condition''s symptoms and providing patients with self help advice.

The Scottish Government has committed to an evidence based approach to screening and is given expert, independent advice on screening programmes by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC sets out the criteria to assess screening programmes; the introduction of proposed new population screening programmes; the modification and withdrawal of existing programmes, and the quality and management of such programmes.

The UK NSC currently advises that a national screening programme for Haemochromatosis should not be introduced. However, this advice is currently under review. Consequently at this point we have no plans to introduce a pilot screening programme for haemochromatosis.

Information is not held centrally on the number of people who have haemochromatosis.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30253 on 26 January 2010. 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/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30253 on 26 January 2010. 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/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30253 on 26 January 2010. 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/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.