Chamber and committees

NHS treatment for unintentional injuries may be provided in a number of health settings including general practice, accident and emergency departments and as an inpatient in a hospital. Data available nationally at a level of detail that would allow the place of the injury (e.g. home) to be identified are only available for those patients admitted as an inpatient to a hospital. In general, it is likely that patients admitted to hospital will have a more serious injury than those treated in general practice or within accident and emergency departments.

Information on the number of those admitted as an inpatient to hospital in the period 2003-04 by council area is shown in the following table. Information split by council ward area is not held centrally.

Table 1. Number of Emergency In-Patient Hospital Admissions as a Result of anUnintentional Injury by Council Area, Year Ending 31 March 2004¹

Council Area		Home	All
Injuries2	Injuries3	%
Total	16,676	60,339	27.6
1	Aberdeen City	1,031	3,529	29.2
2	Aberdeenshire	864	3,015	28.7
3	Angus	376	1,092	34.4
4	Argyll and Bute	371	1,383	26.8
5	Scottish Borders	461	1,075	42.9
6	Clackmannanshire	220	519	42.4
7	West Dunbartonshire	169	1,264	13.4
8	Dumfries and Galloway	526	1,198	43.9
9	Dundee City	609	1,824	33.4
10	East Ayrshire	599	1,802	33.2
11	East Dunbartonshire	148	914	16.2
12	East Lothian	161	752	21.4
13	East Renfrewshire	248	868	28.6
14	Edinburgh, City of	946	3,700	25.6
15	Falkirk	558	1,363	40.9
16	Fife	1,140	3,193	35.7
17	Glasgow City	1,269	8,390	15.1
18	Highland	1,084	3,527	30.7
19	Inverclyde	327	1,253	26.1
20	Midlothian	190	673	28.2
21	Moray	361	937	38.5
22	North Ayrshire	602	1,961	30.7
23	North Lanarkshire	849	3,703	22.9
24	Orkney Islands	163	357	45.7
25	Perth and Kinross	588	1,664	35.3
26	Renfrewshire	322	2,265	14.2
27	Shetland Islands	52	223	23.3
28	South Ayrshire	673	1,657	40.6
29	South Lanarkshire	763	3,376	22.6
30	Stirling	395	934	42.3
31	West Lothian	461	1,619	28.5
32	Eilean Siar	150	309	48.5

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland (SMR01).

Notes:

1. These statistics are derived from data collected on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals (SMR01) in Scotland.

2. Home injuries are identified using SMR01 admission type code 33 – Patient Injury (including poisoning in the home).

3. Unintentional INJURIES are identified using SMR01 admission type codes 32-35, these include;

32 – Patient injury, Road Traffic Accident (RTA).

33 – Patient injury, home injury (including accidental poisoning in the home).

34 – Patient injury, injury at work.

35 – Patient injury, other injury (inc. accidental poisoning other than in the home), not elsewhere classified.

NHS treatment for unintentional injuries may be provided in a number of health settings, including general practice, accident and emergency departments and as an in-patient in a hospital. Data available nationally, at a level of detail that would allow the place of the injury (e.g. home) to be identified, are only available for those patients admitted as an inpatient to a hospital. In general, it is likely that patients admitted to hospital will have a more serious injury than those treated in general practice or within accident and emergency departments.

Information on the number of those admitted as an in-patient to hospital in the period 1999-2000 to 2003-04 by age group is shown in the following table. Full information for 2004-05 is not yet available.

The Scottish Executive has procured a national accident and emergency system for recording unintentional injury that is presently being rolled out across NHSScotland.

Table 1. Number of Emergency In-Patient Hospital Admissions as a Result of an Unintentional Injury by Age Group, Year Ending 31 March

Type of Injury 1	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Home Injuries 2	18,809	17,962	17,963	17,312	16,676
	494	476	485	447	440
1-4	2,544	2,346	2,338	2,097	1,905
5-9	939	842	822	776	732
10-14	471	434	444	408	380
15-24	819	881	827	694	650
25-44	2,166	2,132	1,995	1,814	1,694
45-64	2,624	2,533	2,461	2,449	2,417
65-74	2,160	2,074	2,123	2,020	2,032
75+	6,592	6,244	6,468	6,607	6,426
All Injuries 3	66,090	66,251	67,199	64,642	60,339
	628	623	642	621	615
1-4	3,944	3,689	3,722	3,395	3,127
5-9	3,923	3,602	3,557	3,407	3,232
10-14	4,063	3,671	3,905	3,688	3,559
15-24	9,005	9,386	9,678	9,158	7,969
25-44	14,767	15,181	15,370	14,210	12,683
45-64	10,735	11,217	11,128	10,987	10,506
65-74	5,917	5,931	5,839	5,810	5,678
75+	13,108	12,951	13,358	13,366	12,970
Percentage Home Injuries	28.5	27.1	26.7	26.8	27.6
	78.7	76.4	75.5	72.0	71.5
1-4	64.5	63.6	62.8	61.8	60.9
5-9	23.9	23.4	23.1	22.8	22.6
10-14	11.6	11.8	11.4	11.1	10.7
15-24	9.1	9.4	8.5	7.6	8.2
25-44	14.7	14.0	13.0	12.8	13.4
45-64	24.4	22.6	22.1	22.3	23.0
65-74	36.5	35.0	36.4	34.8	35.8
75+	50.3	48.2	48.4	49.4	49.5

Source:ISD Scotland (SMR01).

Notes:

1. These statistics are derived from data collected on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals (SMR01) in Scotland.

2. Home injuries are identified using SMR01 admission type code 33 – Patient Injury (inc poisoning in the home).

3. Unintentional injuries are identified using SMR01 admission type codes 32-35, these include;

32 – Patient injury, Road Traffic Accident (RTA).

33 – Patient injury, Home injury (including accidental poisoning in the home).

34 – Patient injury, injury at work.

35 – Patient injury, other injury (including accidental poisoning other than in the home), not elsewhere classified.

Disclosure Scotland deals with applications in date order as they are received with no distinction as to the level of check requested.

Following the delays of last year, Disclosure Scotland has revised its process and introduced new technology to ensure that it operates as quickly as possible. Processing performance is monitored on a daily basis. This allows Disclosure Scotland to react quickly to any deficit between receipts and issues so that its service level target of issuing certificates for 90% of valid applications within 14 working days can be maintained.

The numbers of staff employed since Disclosure Scotland was established in April 2002 are set out in the table. The numbers include staff employed by British Telecommunications plc and the Scottish Criminal Record Office who operate the service in partnership on behalf of Scottish ministers.

Year	Full-Time	Part-Time	Temporary	Total
April 2002	47	0.5	0	47.5
April 2003	72	13.4	0	85.4
April 2004	108	33.5	52	193.5
December 2004	100	26.5	24	150.5

 

A regulatory impact assessment on bodies likely to be affected by the legislation was carried out prior to the introduction of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Bill in September 2002. The results of that assessment were published in the Financial Memorandum accompanying the bill.

The following numbers of GP practices were accredited as training practices in each of the relevant years:

1999	282
2000	282
2001	273
2002	276
2003	283
2004	282

 

Over the same period the number of trainers increased by 22%, from 314 to 384, with two accredited trainers now available in the majority of training practices.

Following our consultation on proposals to revise existing animal welfare legislation, issued earlier this year, we intend to introduce legislation during the course of this Parliament.

Apart from Grant Aided support to the local authorities for social work the Scottish Executive allocated specific financial resources as follows:

Budget	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
(£000)	(£000)	(£000)	(£000)	(£000)
Training	393	393	393	643	665
Recruitment and Support	242	242	300	642	792
Legal Representation of Children	n/a	n/a	500	3	3
SCRA	12,265	13,747	15,751	16,506	21,176
Total	12,9	14,382	16,944	20,8791	25,633

 

In addition, the Scottish Executive provided staff to co-ordinate news letters, a website, development of software, training etc.

Shortly. Proposals for Phase 2 are being considered in the light of the issues raised by Phase 1 which include how to ensure the system delivers positive outcomes for all children referred through interagency working, how to engage better with parents and highlight their responsibilities, and the fit betweenthe children’s hearings system and other services for children.

The objective of the review is to develop and improve the children’s hearings system while respecting its fundamental principles, one of which is a single system for dealing with children who offend or who are in need of care and protection.