Questions and answers

Question reference: S3W-01909

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide comparative details of emergency admission rates to Borders General Hospital for the five-year period prior to the introduction of NHS 24 and in the years since its introduction.

NHS 24 was introduced to NHSBorders in April 2004.

The requested information ispresented in the following table.

Emergency Admissions to BordersGeneral Hospital and Crude Admission Rates by Year of Discharge, Years Ending 31March 2000-06

Year	Emergency Admissions²	Population for NHS Borders³	Crude Emergency Admission Rates per 100,000 population⁴
2000	9,116	105,810	8,615
2001	9,394	106,250	8,841
2002	10,267	106,950	9,600
2003	10,124	107,400	9,426
2004	10,190	108,280	9,411
2005	11,045	109,270	10,108
2006	11,412	109,730	10,400

Source:SMR01 linked database, GRO population estimates.

Notes:

1.NHS 24 was introduced to NHS Borders residents in April 2004. Figures in italicsare for the years following introduction.

2.This is a count of all emergency episodes at Borders General Hospital; excludingtransfers.

3.Population is taken from GRO mid-year estimates of NHS Border Residents

4. Crude emergency admissionrates should be interpreted with caution. Episodes occurring at Borders General Hospital willinclude a small proportion of patients resident outside of NHS Borders health boardarea.

Question reference: S3W-01910

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cyclist casualties have been treated by the NHS in each of the last five years in each NHS board area.

Cyclist casualties could be treatedin a number of health care settings e.g. GP practices; hospital accident and emergencydepartments or as hospital admissions.

It is not possible to identifycyclist casualties in GP practices or accident and emergency departments from centrallyheld data.

Details on the number of continuousstays in an acute general hospital where the diagnosis information indicates thatthe patient was a pedal cyclist, injured in a transport accident, is given in adocument Table 1: Hospital stays for injured pedal cyclists a copy of whichhas been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 43168).

Question reference: S3W-01915

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many women (a) were diagnosed with and (b) died from breast cancer in each of the last five years, broken down by (i) NHS board and (ii) parliamentary constituency.

Data on newly diagnosed cancersin Scotland are recorded on the Scottish Cancer Registry. The mostrecent year of data currently available is 2004.

Data on deaths in Scotland arerecorded by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). The most recent yearof data currently available is 2005.

More comprehensive data on breastcancer can be found on the Scottish Health Statistics website at:

www.isdscotland.org/cancer.

The following tables (which havebeen placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre) present the informationrequested.

Table a (i) Incidence (number of registrations) of female breastcancer (ICD-10 C50) by NHS Board Area of Residence, 2000-04. (Bib. number 43171).

Table a (ii) Incidence (numberof registrations) of female breast cancer (ICD-10 C50) by Scottish ParliamentaryConstituency, 2000-04. (Bib. number 43172).

Table b (i) Mortality (number of death registrations) from femalebreast cancer (ICD‑10 C50) by NHS Board Area of Residence, 2001-05. (Bib. number 43173).

Table b (ii) Mortality (numberof death registrations) from female breast cancer (ICD‑10 C50) by Scottish Parliamentary Constituency, 2001-05. (Bib.number 43174).

Question reference: S3W-02015

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients were admitted to hospital suffering from hypothermia in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) age and (b) NHS board.

The number of continuous stayswith a diagnosis of hypothermia over the last five years is presented by NHS boardin table 1 and by age in table 2.

Table 1. Numberof Continuous Stays^1,2 Discharged with a Diagnosis of Hypothermia³by NHS Board of Residence; for Financial Years 2001-02 to 2005-06

NHS Board	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Argyll and Clyde	27	16	16	25	24
Ayrshire and Arran	26	26	16	27	24
Borders	2	-	1	3	3
Dumfries and Galloway	10	2	8	6	5
Fife	10	12	7	18	15
Forth Valley	4	15	8	12	8
Grampian	23	24	21	24	22
Greater Glasgow	27	31	27	26	23
Highland	21	23	28	16	24
Lanarkshire	4	7	12	11	10
Lothian	8	25	17	17	19
Orkney	7	6	3	1	3
Shetland	4	2	5	1	4
Tayside	22	31	12	16	12
Western Isles	6	1	1	3	2
Scotland	201	221	182	206	198

Notes:

These figures are derived fromlinked records on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals (SMR01)in Scotland.

A continuous stay is an unbrokenperiod of time that a patient spends in hospital. A patient may change consultant,significant facility, specialty, hospital and/or provider unit during a continuousstay.

Up to six diagnoses (one primary,five secondary) are recorded on SMR01 returns. All six diagnoses were used to selectfor hypothermia. The following code was used from the International Classificationof Diseases 10th revision (ICD10): T68.-.

- denotes a zero value.

Table 2: Number ofContinuous Stays^1,2 Discharged with a Diagnosis of Hypothermia³by Age Group; for residents of Scotland; for Financial Years 2001-02 to 2005-06

Age Group	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
0-14	8	12	8	6	5
15-24	21	18	15	15	18
25-44	31	27	28	31	43
45-64	44	61	48	49	35
65-74	33	32	20	33	25
75-84	22	37	37	44	39
85+	42	34	26	28	33
All Ages	201	221	182	206	198

Source: ISD Scotland(SMR01), Ref: IR2007-01629.

Notes:

These figures are derived fromlinked records on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals (SMR01)in Scotland.

A continuous stay is an unbrokenperiod of time that a patient spends in hospital. A patient may change consultant,significant facility, specialty, hospital and/or provider unit during a continuousstay.

Up to six diagnoses (one primary,five secondary) are recorded on SMR01 returns. All six diagnoses were used to selectfor hypothermia. The following code was used from the International Classificationof Diseases 10th revision (ICD10): T68.-.

Question reference: S3W-02019

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of (a) household, (b) commercial and (c) total waste was recycled by each local authority in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S3W-01236

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 18 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-790 by Maureen Watt on 19 June 2007, whether ministers offer guidance to schools on the distinction between recruitment to the armed forces headed up by the Army recruitment team and other careers information.

Question reference: S3W-01367

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what reports commissioned by the previous administration into extending the Borders railway beyond Tweedbank it has been able to access.

Question reference: S3W-01631

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 17 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding is available for the Young Scot scheme and how it is distributed.

Question reference: S3W-01630

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities have issued Young Scot cards and how many are currently in circulation, expressed also as a percentage of each local authority’s secondary school population.

There are approximately337,000 Young Scot branded cards in circulation throughout all 32 of Scotland’s local authorities.

These are a mixtureof the original non smart cards (issued prior to April 2006) and the replacementNational Entitlement Card (smartcard) which has been available to all young peoplesince April 2006. The immediate priority has been to issue the cards to those youngpeople who are entitled to the Young Persons Concessionary Travel Scheme (whichhas been operational since January 2007).

Work is currentlyon-going with all local authorities (and in conjunction with Young Scot) to replaceall the original non smart cards.

There is currentlyno information available on what percentage of these cards are held by secondaryschool pupils in each local authority. However, when the new national card managementsolution is in place (October 2007) such management information will be available.

Question reference: S3W-01914

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 16 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what capital funding has been given to (a) NHS National Services Scotland, (b) the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, (c) the Protein Fractionation Centre and (d) Alba Bioscience in each of the last four years.

National ServicesScotland (NSS) is given an annual capital allocationof c.£5 million to meet minor capital requirements across all its internal divisions.All further capital funding is by way of additional allocation from the HealthDepartment for specific projects. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service(SNBTS), a division of NSS, has not received any specific allocations from theHealth Department during the four year period in question.

The funding shownfor SNBTS, the Protein Fractionation Centre (PFC) and Alba Bioscience (Alba) hastherefore been made available from the minor capital fund allocated to NSS.

The information requested,including a split of the total capital funding between funding for specific projectsand the minor capital fund, is as follows:

Year	Total Capital Funding to NSS (£ Million)	Capital Funding for Specific Projects¹ (£ Million)	Minor Capital Fund (£ Million)	Capital Funding to SNBTS² (£ Million)	Capital Funding to PFC (£ Million)	Capital Funding to Alba (£ Million)
2003-04	18.4	13.9	4.5	1.45	0.32	0.09
2004-05	25.9	19.4	6.5	0.74	0.03	0.04
2005-06	21.9	16.9	5	2.34	0.63	0.05
2006-07	34.6	29.3	5.3	2.04	0.14	0.12

Chamber and committees