Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government announced at the introduction of the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill that the display ban of tobacco products in shops will be introduced for small shops in 2013 and larger retailers in 2011. The Scottish Government intend to consult on draft regulations as soon as practicable after Royal Assent of the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill. As is current best practice, three months has been allowed for the consultation process on the regulations.

Draft regulations were shared with the Health and Sport Committee in advance of its stage 2 consideration of the Bill and can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/hs/TGPBill/documents/2009.11.03TPMSBill-Draftregulations.pdf.

The Scottish Government is supporting NHS boards to take forward a change programme to address the health inequalities facing people with a learning disability and/or autism spectrum disorder. A learning network of NHS boards will give them a forum to share learning and good practice. The first meeting of the full learning network is scheduled for February.

More generally, the Fair for All agenda looks to ensure that whatever the individuals circumstances, they have access to the right health services for their needs.

Guidance entitled Achieving Fair Access was issued to the NHS in April 2007 and is available at http://www.healthscotland.com/documents/2033.aspx.

In Scotland the precise term dementia specialist nurse is not recognised as such; rather there are clinical nurse specialist and nurse consultants as registered nursing professionals who have also acquired additional knowledge, skills and experience, together with a professionally and/or academically accredited post-registration qualification in a clinical specialty. They practice at an advanced level and may have sole responsibility for care episode or defined client/group such as those with dementia.

NHS boards'' nurses specialising in dementia have a range of roles which will include helping to improve the experience of those with dementia in accessing acute health services.

Nationally, there are three posts funded by Alzheimer Scotland for specialist nurses to work in accident and emergency and acute care, to lead the development and delivery of an individually focused service to people with dementia in those settings. Other approaches to provision in acute care include the Dementia Champions being set up in several NHS boards in Scotland, and The University West of Scotland is piloting a programme wherein general nurses from acute care undertake training in dementia and lead change in their area.

We will set out future plans for dementia service development and improvement in the National Dementia Strategy which will be published in April.

Funding over the three year period is being allocated in an annual lump sum to NHS health boards. It is for them to determine how best to use that funding to meet local needs, within the broad criteria set out in CEL 36.

Details of the allocation were outlined in CEL 36(2008) Nutrition of women of childbearing age, pregnant women and children under five in disadvantaged areas, which can be found at:

http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2008_36.pdf.

NHS (e) Tayside has implemented some of the updated criteria but patients are returned to the waiting list after each unsuccessful cycle of infertility treatment. NHS (c) Greater Glasgow and Clyde offers two cycles of treatment, instead of the recommended three. However, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde include suitable frozen embryos within a cycle of treatment, whilst many other NHS boards do not.

NHS (a) Fife, (b) Forth Valley and (d) Lothian have still to implement the updated criteria from the 2007 Review of Infertility Services.

Infertility Network Scotland is working directly with NHS boards to ensure that the voices of patients are heard at a local level in the planning of infertility services in Scotland. The charity will concentrate their initial work on NHS boards not compliant with national guidance.

Phase two of the vaccination programme to offer vaccination to children aged over six months and under five years has now commenced and will continue over the next few weeks. We anticipate that this will be completed by the end of January with some mop up activity into mid-February.

Health boards have indicated that vaccination has been offered to all those in the initial priority groups, including health and social care workers. A mop up exercise continues to take place to the end of January however, to ensure that everyone in the initial priority groups has been invited for vaccination.

To date, 50.8% of eligible frontline health care staff have received the vaccination and 32.1% of eligible frontline social care staff have been vaccinated.

All NHS boards in Scotland recently completed a detailed questionnaire on the provision of infertility services in their area. Infertility Network Scotland is following up responses to the questionnaire. Whilst Infertility Network Scotland will concentrate their efforts initially on NHS boards who indicated in the questionnaire that they were not meeting the national guidance, the charity do plan to meet with all NHS boards in Scotland.

A summary of responses from NHS boards will, when finalised, be placed in the Scottish Parliament''s Information Centre (Bib. number 49114).

It is the responsibility of individual health boards to ensure they have the right staff and services in place to meet the clinical needs of the population within their board area, including the needs of those with dementia.

In Scotland the precise term dementia specialist nurse is not recognised as such; rather there are clinical nurse specialist and nurse consultants as registered nursing professionals who have also acquired additional knowledge, skills and experience, together with a professionally and/or academically accredited post-registration qualification in a clinical specialty. They practice at an advanced level and may have sole responsibility for care episode or defined client/group such as those with dementia.

We will set out future plans for dementia service development and improvement in the National Dementia Strategy which will be published in April.

All NHS boards in Scotland recently completed a detailed questionnaire on the provision of infertility services in their area, and this question was included. Infertility Network Scotland are currently following up responses to the questionnaire, and will meet with NHS boards who are not compliant with national guidance on infertility early in 2010.

Once complete, a summary of responses from NHS boards will be placed in the Scottish Parliament''s Information Centre (Bib. number 49114).