Chamber and committees

I have asked Mr Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond, his response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service are introducing new employee related policies on:

Staff attendance patterns, to ensure that staff attend when the business requires it, and to improve efficiency;

Sickness absence management, to improve consistency and effectiveness, and to reduce overall sickness absence;

The filling of vacancies, to improve efficiency; and

Conduct and equal opportunities, to clarify what behaviour is acceptable and what is not, and to guide staff on dealing with unacceptable behaviour from colleagues.

I am assured by the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust, of which the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital is a part, that complementary treatment for cancer sufferers will not be affected as a result of the move of the Senior Registrar to take up a new post with the United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust. The Senior Registrar provided one session a week at the hospital and the clinic which she held has continued to be run since her departure.

I refer Ms Grahame to the answer I gave to her question S1W-8762.

I refer Ms Grahame to the answer I gave to her question S1W-8762.

The Scottish Advisory Committee on Alcohol Misuse (SACAM) was specifically set up to advice the Scottish Executive on the development and implementation of a coherent national strategy, and the most appropriate targeting of available resources.

SACAM identified, within its first Action Plan, the range of developments necessary to lay firm foundations for effective implementation of a robust and sustainable strategy. The work currently in progress will help us to determine the most appropriate targeting of available resources in the longer term. At this stage, available funding is being used to support initial implementation of the Action Plan. Specific work in this respect includes the undertaking of a scoping review of alcohol misuse information; research into costs associated with alcohol misuse and cost-effectiveness of measures to reduce alcohol misuse which will shortly be commissioned; the preparation of an inventory of alcohol services; increased funding to Alcohol Misuse Co-ordinating Committees in recognition of their vital role in alcohol misuse at both local and national level, and to inform prevention and health promotion aspects of a national strategy, SACAM is planning to hold an event later this year to examine evidence and perspectives of alcohol misuse.

60% was agreed with representatives of the BMA in Scotland as a Scotland-wide target which is regarded as both achievable and beneficial.

It is expected that, as is normal procedure, influenza immunisation will be concentrated in the period between 1 September 2000 to 31 January 2001.

This information is not held centrally.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that the influenza vaccination programme be extended to those aged 65 years and over in March this year. The JCVI was not invited to suggest or endorse an uptake target for the programme.

It is not possible to give a precise answer. Even during a major influenza outbreak, it is relatively rare for the underlying cause of death to be classified as influenza because doctors do not often mention influenza on the certificate of cause of death. Provisional returns for the three months December 1999 to February 2000 show that influenza was mentioned for 164 deaths of persons aged 65 and over. Influenza was classified as the underlying cause of death for 137 of these. It is known that deaths from a number of other causes, notably pneumonia and other respiratory conditions, increase significantly during a period of high influenza activity. However, there is no standard method of associating a proportion of these extra deaths with influenza.