Chamber and committees

It is planned that a draft strategy on the future of community hospitals will be circulated for consultation during Summer 2005. The final version will be available in April 2006.

At all times, all clinically urgent calls are dealt with immediately by NHS 24 nurse advisers. During peak times, less clinically urgent calls are prioritised and receive a call back by a nurse adviser within a specific timescale. All callers who are categorised in this way are advised that should their condition deteriorate or they become concerned they should immediately contact the service again. The number of Priority one (P1) and Priority two (P2) call back calls and the percentage of those for which NHS 24 did not reach the target call back time since its establishment are listed in the table (these figures are not available broken down by NHS board area):

	2002*	2003	2004**	2005*
Total P1 calls	4,049	20,257	42,215	31,586
P1 calls outwith target	45	2,305	6,147	2,317
%age outwith target	1%	11%	15%	7%
Total P2 calls	4,013	27,910	60,529	43,864
P2 calls outwith target	408	8,702	20,617	7,705
%age outwith target	10%	31%	34%	18%

Notes:

*NHS 24 was launched on 8 May 2002.

**Call back standard for Priority 1 calls changed from 30 minutes to 60 minutes from November 2004. Call back standard for Priority 2 calls changed from 60 minutes to 120 minutes from December 2004.

***Figures available for January and February 2005.

It should also be borne in mind that NHS 24 did not roll out to the whole of Scotland until November 2004, so these figures over each year are not yet comparable.

The rationale for changes in call back targets for Priority 1 and Priority 2 calls, which were agreed by NHS 24’s Executive Team in December 2004, related to risk management balancing clinical appropriateness, managing demand and available resources. NHS 24’s Executive Team agreed that, subject to appropriate clinical prioritisation and on-going monitoring and review of the call back queue, the clinical cases in Priority 2 could safely be clinically assessed within two hours. All calls awaiting call back are regularly reviewed by experienced nursing staff and can be re-prioritised based on clinical need.

The review of NHS 24 which was announced in February will identify performance improvements to ensure that it realises its full potential in delivering high quality services for patient. The use of call back and how it can be reduced is part of the NHS 24 review team’s remit.

Clinicians have access to standard diagnostic criteria and a multitude of assessment tools for the diagnosis of dementia. These include consideration of intellectual and behavioural functions. Updated best practice clinical guidelines on dementia will be published by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network this summer.

While the carer’s role is always taken into account in the assessments of those with dementia, there are no specific standards for carers’ assessments of people with dementia.

The information requested is given in the table.

Deaths from Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy ¹, Scotland, 1999-2004

1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	20042
6	7	7	10	2	5

Notes:

1. 1999: International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, code 425.1 2000–2004: International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, code I42.1.

2. Provisional.

In its final report in 2003, the Housing Improvement Task Force recommended that there should be no prescribed “shelf life” for the single survey on the basis that a surveyor can be expected to assess the condition of a property only at the time when survey is carried out. This is similar to the current position when surveys are commissioned by buyers.

 The Scottish Executive consultation paper on proposals for the Housing Bill included a question on time limits for surveys. Eighty-six percent of those who responded on this point said that there should be a time limit on single surveys. Of those who agreed that there should be a time limit over 60% proposed that the time limit should be six months or less. A further quarter of respondents to this question said that the maximum time limit on the validity of a single survey should be one year.

Some respondents, for example the National Association of Estate Agents and the Law Society, suggested that a compulsory time limit on single surveys would place financial pressures on sellers particularly in areas where the market is less active.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors expressed strong opposition to any time limit, noting that a survey is a “snapshot” of the property at the time of the inspection. It also pointed out that there are risks in relying on old information.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders argued that it would be difficult to be prescriptive about a time limit. It expressed the view that in areas where there is a buoyant market, such as Edinburgh, the valuation might change significantly over a three-month period. However, in less active areas a valuation might not change significantly over a six or even a nine-month period.

From our discussions with the parties mentioned above, we are not aware of any changes to these views on this issue. We will work closely with all stakeholders on this and other issues to deliver an effective scheme.

A full report on the consultation can be found at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/housing/mhphcr-00.asp.

The number of Record of Needs opened in 2000-05 in total and broken down by local authority is not held centrally.

However, we do collect statistics within the school census on the numbers of Records of Needs which exist currently within each local authority. Links to each of these publications are as follows:

2000 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00079.pdf.2001 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00168.pdf.2002 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00272.pdf.2003 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00350.pdf.2004 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00412.

The table shows the number of GPs in post who are aged 60 and over at 21 February 2005, together with the additional GPs who will reach the age of 60 at 21 February in each of the following three years 2006-08. This information is shown for Scotland and by individual NHS board.

GPs aged 60 and Over in the Years 2005 - 2008: by NHS Board Area

	GPs Aged 60 and Over	Additional GPs who Reach Age 60 in the Years:
Year	2005	2006	2007	2008
Scotland	150	58	77	89
Argyll and Clyde	19	7	3	9
Ayrshire and Arran	8	4	7	7
Borders	1	1	5	3
Dumfries and Galloway	3	1	-	3
Fife	7	3	5	4
Forth Valley	5	4	5	5
Grampian	7	3	9	9
Greater Glasgow	36	7	11	13
Highland	9	5	5	6
Lanarkshire	19	5	11	7
Lothian	19	8	10	14
Orkney	3	1	-	1
Shetland	2	-	-	1
Tayside	9	9	5	7
Western Isles	3	-	1	-

Source: General Medical Practitioner database, ISD Scotland.

Ref: IR2005-00558 – 23 February 2005.

The requirements with which general medical practitioners must comply are set out in the NHS (Primary Medical Services Performers lists) (Scotland) Regulations 2004. They do not specify an age for retirement.

The terms of the NHS pension scheme in Scotland allow for members to retire from pensionable employment at any time on or after attaining age 60, with entitlement to a normal retirement pension. This arrangement includes those members who are general practitioners.

The new GMS contract, introduced on 1 April 2004, includes specific incentives to help fill vacancies which occur. To achieve this, the contract allows GPs to manage their workloads better. Perhaps the biggest disincentive to attracting GPs into general practice was onerous out-of-hours commitments, particularly in remote and rural areas. Under the terms of the new contract GPs can now transfer this responsibility to NHS boards.

The new contract also included enhanced seniority payments for GPs.

The Scottish Executive is aware of the excellent work done by Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland. Core funding for Citizens Advice Bureaux is a matter for local authorities, who are best placed to decide on the allocation of resources according to the needs of their particular areas. The Executive will be providing local authorities with almost £8.1 billion in 2005-06 to help them fund core services such as Citizens Advice Bureaux.

Consideration of applications under the one-year additional support needs advocacy pilots scheme is now complete. Successful applicants have been informed and the exercise will not be reopened. For details of these organisations and awards, I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-15099 on 22 March 2005. 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/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S2W-15099 and S2W-15100 on 22 March 2005. 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/webapp/wa.search.