Chamber and committees

Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Strategy supersedes the eHealth Strategy 2014-17. The strategy has been developed jointly by the Scottish Government, COSLA and NHSScotland following extensive engagement and independent advice from a panel of UK and international experts and provides a response to the Health and Sports committee inquiry on Technology and Innovation in Health and Social care. The strategy sets out the actions that we will focus on with our delivery partners in order to ensure that the right building blocks are in place for our vision to be realised.

Scottish mental health law offers safeguards for patients where compulsory treatment is necessary. The detailed reasons for any change in data are not clear but any increase in compulsory treatment may represent the effects of more people coming forward for treatment and an increased awareness of mental ill health more generally. The majority of people subject to compulsory treatment are on short term rather than long term orders.

Earlier this year, we announced an independent review of mental health legislation in Scotland which will focus in part on compulsion and is currently considering how best to seek and evaluate evidence about the way persons subject to compulsion, under the Mental Health Act, currently receive care and treatment. This will include issues such as the way compulsion has developed since the Act came into force and the tests used to justify compulsion. The review will produce an interim report in May 2020, which will include an overall timeline for the next stage of the review. We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure these orders are used correctly and continue to promote patients’ rights.

The Care Inspectorate grades services on ‘Quality of staffing’/’How good is our staff team?’ which includes taking into account if staffing levels are appropriate to meet people’s needs.

Between 30 June 2018 and 30 June 2019, the number of inspections where the Care Inspectorate graded the service ‘1 – unsatisfactory’ for ‘Quality of staffing/How good is our staff team?’ was (a) 7 care homes for adults, including care homes for older people; (b) 25 other care services.

Since 2018, (a) no care homes for adults and (b) no other care services have had staffing conditions imposed on them by the Care Inspectorate through the use of a condition notice issued under Section 66 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

I refer the member to my answer to PQ S5W-26041 on 22 November 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Data is available from National Records of Scotland which shows ages of children and young people who have completed suicide. It is not possible to confirm definitely that they were in school, however this provides a reasonable indication of the numbers in school education. Therefore, there are no plans to introduce a policy relating to this recording.

In 2020-2021 a 24/7 crisis support will be developed for children and young people and their families, creating a national service linking to police and emergency health services. We will also introduce a text service so children and young people can text as well as phone to access help. We will build on existing pilots to ensure children and young people can access crisis services in a way that best meets their needs, whether that’s face to face, on the phone or by text.

Additionally, community wellbeing services will be put in place to support the mental health needs of children and young people, using an open access model that also allows self-referral. This service is being progressed through the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Programme Board.

In addition we are funding new counselling support across schools, colleges and universities as well as increasing the number of school nurses.

So whilst the research is of interest and will be considered it pre-dates the most up to date work we are undertaking and that of the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group.

Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Strategy commits to “Deliver the digital capability for citizens to access and update information about their health and wellbeing, including their records and from personal monitoring, and to interact with services”. This is being developed using a person-centred approach to consider how people wish to access digital health and care services. Learning is being taken from a Proof of Concept led by the West of Scotland NHS Boards and will be augmented by further user research in partnership with the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) National Digital Service to inform the development of the National Digital Platform. The Scottish health and care National Digital Platform will ensure that access is available to relevant real-time data and information from health and care records, by those who need it, when they need it, wherever they are, in a secure and safe way."

Service design principles that ensure the people of Scotland are supported and empowered to actively participate in the definition, design and delivery of their public services are absolutely key to how we take forward health and social care services - nationally and locally.

An example of the action we are taking in this area is through the Scottish Government’s Technology Enabled Care Programme, which has taken the Scottish Approach to Service Design for the work that focuses on transforming local systems across East Ayrshire, Midlothian, Highland and Aberdeen City. This means including people right from the very start of the process, building, designing and learning as we go to ensure that we find the right model that can support people in the most appropriate way. It’s initial focus is on looking at how technology can support the patient/care pathway for respiratory, frailty, place-based care and people who have been affected by abuse, as set out in our Programme for Government.

In our implementation of the Attend Anywhere Video Consultation service, we have taken the same approach. It has not been about the technology, it’s about putting in place a service that fits in seamlessly with the service users day to day lives regardless of if they are an employee or receiving care.

All aspects of the strategy will have service design at their core and that is why the strategy was developed with public feedback and consultation throughout the process. This includes the development of the National Digital Platform and the public will play a key role, particularly when looking at patient authentication and patient access to services.

Scottish Government is committed to providing digital tools and services to people so that they are able to manage their health and wellbeing. Adopting the principles of the Scottish Approach to Service Design these will be co-produced with users so that any new digital service meets their needs, and also complements local service delivery. Examples of this include Attend Anywhere (which includes NHS Near Me). Over 7,000 patient consultations have been held to date mostly across acute care. Extending into primary care and social care is part of the 2019/20 Programme for Government. Scale-Up of Blood Pressure Monitoring was launched for the remote diagnosis & management of hypertension. Circa 10,000 patients have used this service to date and over 30% of GP practices have already signed up for hypertension management alone, with around 23,000 patients in total managing a variety of conditions.