Chamber and committees

NHS Scotland, Health and Social Care Partnerships together with local authorities and third sector partners are ideally placed to work together to provide a range of care, services and support that responds appropriately to the assessed health and mental health needs of veterans and their families.

The Scottish Government set out its commitment to Veterans in Renewing Our Commitments, which recognised veterans and their families as a true asset to Scotland and reaffirmed that no member of the Armed Forces, Service family member or veteran in Scotland should face disadvantage when accessing services and support. Amongst other achievements, Renewing Our Commitments highlighted the Scottish Government’s funding of over £3.6 million over three years to 2018 in partnership with NHSScotland for the provision of specialist mental health services for veterans resident in Scotland at the Hollybush House Combat Stress facility in Ayr.

The Scottish Government will also shortly publish a new ten-year national Mental Health Strategy to transform and improve mental health and wellbeing. The strategy will build on previous successes and will set out a longer term vision for Scotland where good mental health and wellbeing flourishes for all, including veterans. The strategy, underpinned by additional investment of £150 million over five years, will focus on the need for prevention and early intervention, joined up accessible services that respond appropriately, and tackling the early mortality rate of people experiencing mental ill health.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) publishes statistics on accidental dwelling fires, however this data is not broken down into specific causes.

These statistics are available on SFRS’s website, and can be found at this link: http://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/fire-and-rescue-statistics.aspx

The SFRS has a statutory duty to promote fire safety across Scotland. In the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2016, Scottish Ministers require SFRS to contribute fully to improving the safety and well-being of Scotland’s communities and to ensure that there is a clear process for working with partners to identify the risks faced by communities and individuals so that activity can be targeted using a risk-based approach.

The SFRS considers how best to reduce dwelling fires, including those caused by electricity, what the focus of its preventative action will be, and with which partner organisations it will work to achieve this.

In addition to a programme of fire safety awareness campaigns and community safety engagement events, the SFRS carried out 71,743 Home Fire Safety Visits in 2015-16. The SFRS website also carries safety information for householders on a range of issues, including home appliances and electrical safety.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have responsibility for the planning and provision of local services. We expect all Health Boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, to keep their services under review to ensure they remain of the highest quality and are as efficient as possible.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the provision of quality services in the Clyde area, and the Chair of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has given an assurance that the continued provision of comprehensive hospital, community and primary care services across the Clyde area, including at the Vale of Leven Hospital, is a key priority for the Health Board.

The national review of maternity and neonatal services was published at the end of January and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde are currently considering their Clyde birthing proposals in light of the review’s recommendations. The Health Board’s next steps will be informed by a report from their Medical and Nurse Directors who are working with colleagues, including the Chief Medical Officer, and stakeholders to ensure the proposals are consistent with the national review. There are no other formal service change proposals affecting the Vale of Leven Hospital. It remains the case that any proposals designated as major service change must be subject to formal public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval.

The National Clinical Strategy sets out an initial analysis of which services might best be planned and delivered nationally regionally and locally, based on evidence supporting best outcomes and the populations those services will serve.

It will be for NHS Boards, working together, to plan and deliver services locally, regionally and nationally, to enhance the quality of care, improve services, patient outcomes and ensure we have a sustainable NHS for all of Scotland.

The Health and Social Care Delivery Plan states that in 2018, the appropriate national and regional groups will set out how services will evolve over the next 15 to 20 years, in line with the National Clinical Strategy. This approach to planning will see a different configuration of services across some parts of Scotland, one based on what will ensure high-quality, timely and sustainable provision of services to people.

Scottish Development International records the value of inward investment through the number of jobs and projects, as provided in the response to S5W-05179 on 13 December 2017. No other assessment of value is made by Scottish Development International.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Information on the number of beds there are in each hospital in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is published by ISD Scotland and can be found at the following link:-

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Hospital-Care/Publications/2016-10-04/Annual-Trends-in-Available-Beds-by-Health-Board-of-Treatment-and-Hospital-Oct16.xlsx

37 locums have been used at the Out-of-Hours GP service at the Vale of Leven hospital in the last 12 months.

The Scottish Government will work with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, along with all NHS Boards, to deliver both investment and reform to ensure that the health service is equipped to meet the challenges ahead. Our Health and Social Care Delivery Plan sets out a range of actions to ensure that our services are sustainable, and this is backed up by our commitment to increase the NHS revenue budget by almost £2 billion by the end of this parliament. As our first step towards this, revenue spending will increase to £12.7 billion in 2017-18 with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde receiving an uplift of £31.1 million as part of this.

In 2017-18 we are investing £128 million in Territorial Boards in supporting delivery of service reform. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will benefit from this investment, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to protecting frontline services and supporting reform. All Boards are required to deliver efficiency savings, which are reinvested in frontline services, and we will be reviewing these savings plans as part of the Local Delivery Plan (LDP) process.

We will continue to work with all Boards as they develop financial plans for 2017-18 and beyond, working to ensure that public money delivers value for the benefit of patients, with a focus on the triple aim of better health, better care and better value.

Both Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly discuss matters of importance to local people, such as this, with representatives of all Health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Information Services Division (ISD) publish a list of hospitals with either an Emergency Department or Minor Injuries Unit. This can be found at the following website: http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Emergency-Department-Activity/Hospital-Site-List/

ISD currently do not publish information on emergency admissions at site level. ISD national inpatient data return (SMR01) indicates the following hospitals had admitted more than ten patients as emergencies as at March 2016:

Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Inverclyde Royal Hospital, New Victoria Hospital, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Vale of Leven General Hospital and West Glasgow.

There are five hospitals containing Acute Assessment Units as at March 2016:

Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Inverclyde Royal Hospital, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital and Vale of Leven General Hospital.