Chamber and committees

We have no plans to establish an office for disability issues similar to that recently established by the UK Government. The Scottish Executive Equality Unit already co-ordinates cross-cutting activity on disability within the Executive.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Information on the 10 busiest accident and emergency (A&E) departments is not available. Hospitals with the highest number of attendances, based on total attendances over five years are shown in the table.

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005p	Total
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh/Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France (from Jan 02)	92,961	93,062	87,792	73,568	79,612	426,995
Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow	73,523	73,259	72,537	70,771	69,147	359,237
Western Infirmary/Gartnavel General	72,105	71,620	70,813	71,370	70,941	356,849
Glasgow Royal Infirmary	73,857	71,917	69,105	68,166	66,933	349,978
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary	76,113	76,139	70,882	62,570	57,798	343,502
Monklands Hospital	66,498	64,197	59,711	63,572	63,735	317,713
Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley	60,167	59,391	57,945	59,985	62,866	300,354
Crosshouse Hospital	57,121	58,005	57,015	59,893	60,862	292,896
Law Hospital / Wishaw General Hospital (from May 01)	47,625	52,597	57,964	60,110	60,074	278,370

Source: ISD(S)1.

For this analysis, the source data known as ISD(S)1 is a routine statistical count of patients treated in A&E by a consultant.

The information requested is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the question S2W-21229 answered on 12 December 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.

The recommendations in the Public Health Institute of Scotland’s Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Needs Assessment Report are primarily for local health, education and social work agencies who are responsible for the delivery of services for those who need them, and for determining the allocation of resources. The recommendations are in five key areas: standards and monitoring; matching resources to need; training; research, and diagnosis and assessment. The work of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Reference Group continues to focus on priorities within these areas for delivering better services for individuals and their families. Details of the group’s work are available on the Scottish Executive website at the following link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/care/VAUnit/ASD.

A progress report due for publication in February will provide full details of progress towards implementation of the recommendations to date. It will also identify priorities for further action at national and local level.

Monitoring of multi-agency services for people with ASD will be delivered through joint inspections of learning disability services; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education inspections, and the work of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. The Scottish Executive also monitors individual projects that it funds. The Needs Assessment Report does not set out a timescale for implementation.

The Scottish Executive has consulted with NHSScotland on the adoption and implementation of a code of practice for international recruitment of health care professionals. A partnership approach will be taken through the Human Resources Forum (HRF), to discuss implications on whether the code should be voluntary or compulsory.

Figures detailing “country of origin” of internationally qualified nurses (IQN’s) are not held centrally. There has been no active or targeted recruitment by NHSScotland of nurses and midwives from Africa. It is known that there are some African IQN’s within the health service but they will have applied for positions on an individual basis whilst domiciled in Scotland and are entitled to do so.

The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) published a guideline on the management of osteoporosis in June 2003 and updated in April 2004. We expect NHS boards to take account of these guidelines in the development of their services locally.

As part of the essential services element of the new GMS contract, general practices provide care of patients with long-term conditions. Practices can identify patients with particular diagnoses through their IT systems in order to put in place appropriate care arrangements. Osteoporosis would be one such condition.

As the Minister for Health and Community Care made clear yesterday in his announcement on the Kerr Report, we support the new approach it advocates to the management of long-term conditions. People with osteoporosis will benefit from an approach designed to address an individual’s total needs and quality of life, by providing co-ordinated care in and close to home.

We have strengthened Scots law in this area by creating a new offence of trafficking in prostitution as part of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. The offence is committed if a person arranges or facilitates the arrival in or departure from the UK of another person and intends to control that other person in prostitution or in the production of obscene or indecent material (or believes that a third person is likely to exercise such control over the trafficked person). Conviction for this offence on indictment could result in 14 years imprisonment.

An expert group has been considering the broader legal, policing, health and social justice issues surrounding prostitution in Scotland. Stage 2 of this review will focus specifically on indoor prostitution and trafficking. It will get underway in the next few months.

The Scottish Executive awarded £100,000 from 2004-06, under the Violence Against Women Service Development Fund, to a pilot project offering support services to women who have been trafficked. Glasgow City Council is the lead agency and its funding proposal was drawn up after discussions with the Glasgow Inter-Agency Group on Trafficking, including Criminal Justice Social Work, Scottish Refugee Council, Strathclyde Police and Greater Glasgow NHS Trust. The Inter-Agency Group guides and monitors the work of the project.

The overall aim of the project is to develop expertise around the issue of trafficking for prostitution and to ensure appropriate and sensitive services are in place. A development worker has been recruited to take this work forward and the post holder took up the position on 27 September 2004. Since then the post holder has carried out research on the issues, investigated work happening elsewhere, met with key players, undertaken preliminary work on analysing the indoor sex industry, and drawn up a draft action plan.

The National Group to Address Violence Against Women, chaired by the Deputy Minister for Communities, is also considering strategic links between different forms of violence against women, including commercial sexual exploitation. This work is at an early stage and is being taken forward with advice from an Expert Committee on Violence Against Women.