Chamber and committees

SIGN Guideline 116: Management of Diabetes makes it clear that all people with diabetes should be encouraged to work towards optimising their glycaemic control to reduce the risk of diabetes related complications.

We expect all people with diabetes to have the risk factors for complications assessed and recorded on a regular basis by the team responsible for their diabetes care.

These assessments include checks on; blood glucose, blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels; eye and foot screening, kidney function tests and weight recording. Individuals are also provided with tailored information and advice on how to manage their diabetes effectively.

We have already or are in the process of setting up a number of Implementation and Monitoring Groups which will oversee delivery of the commitments in the Strategy and developing consensus about future developments.

Each of the groups is responsible for monitoring progress, identifying barriers to implementation, providing advice on delivery and ensuring that the commitments are met. They will also have a role in considering the agenda for the end of the Strategy period. The groups are:

Mental Health Delivery Team - overall deliver of the Strategy and Data and Knowledge (Commitments 1, 14, 26, 27, 28 and 36)

Psychological Therapies (Commitment 13)

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Commitments 7-12)

Primary Care and Common Mental Health Problems (Commitments 6, 15-22)

Rights, Recovery, Families and Carers, Peer to Peer and Employability (Commitments 2-5 and 29)

Community, Inpatient and Crisis Services (Commitments 23-25)

This approach is a flexible one which allows us to bring in different expertise across the timeframe of delivery of the Strategy. Some of the commitments are relatively easy to map out at this stage e.g. commissioning a review, but others are more developmental and implementation will depend on what emerges from the early stages of the work e.g. development of learning disability child and adolescent mental health services.

We will be updating the Mental Health Strategy pages on the Scottish Government website to include information about the Implementation and Monitoring Groups, their membership and meetings, and about progress on each of the commitments. In addition, we intend to hold an annual stakeholder engagement event where stakeholders who are not involved directly in the Implementation and Monitoring Groups can hear in more detail about delivery of the commitments, and have an opportunity to comment and provide feedback.

In preparation for reporting on the Psychological Therapies HEAT Target, ISD Scotland are collecting data on a monthly basis from NHS boards. Currently boards are at different stages in the format and completeness of the data they are able to report on, although all boards are working hard to have systems in place.

We will make the first publication reporting on progress towards the target later this year, when we expect the data will be of sufficient quality and sufficiently consistent and complete to allow meaningful interpretation and comparison.

Work is ongoing to ensure that NHS boards have the right measures in place to deliver, in a manner which ensures not only achieving the waiting time target, which is in itself important, but also puts in place sustainable service improvement and benefit to patients. This involves work around a number of areas, including capacity, information systems and service redesign.

The implementation group established to oversee delivery of this commitment will have its first meeting in June. The group will be responsible for a number of commitments including employability and will continue to build on work developing an established base of evidence around the different elements of employability and their suitability for mental health provision at varying levels of need.

The group will be focusing not simply on what works but on developing the evidence for individuals across the spectrum of mental health and wellbeing. This work is being carried out with a wide range of stakeholders across the statutory and voluntary sector.

The guidance which will set out the evidence base and identify good practice will be published on completion of that work. We will be updating the Mental Health Strategy pages on the Scottish Government website to include information about Implementation and progress on each of the Strategy commitments, including commitment 29.

March data is being collated by ISD and will be included in the quarterly publication (January 2013 – March 2013) that is published on 28 May 2013.

Legislation will be introduced to Parliament before summer, that will place health boards and local authorities under a duty to work in collaboration with key stakeholders to plan and deliver nationally agreed outcomes, and we would expect these to include the third sector.

The integration of health and social care will facilitate integration of commissioning budgets for adult services. This will create a single commissioning budget from which partners will commission improved outcomes for adult health and social care, including integrated services for people with learning disabilities. Local partnerships will be developed to meet local needs and will include third sector organisations, where appropriate.

This information is not held centrally.

Everyone with dementia, including those with learning difficulties are entitled to receive care, treatment and support in line with the Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland (2011). People with dementia and a learning difficulty should receive a multi-disciplinary assessment of their care needs, including attention to removing any barriers to effective communication between the person with dementia and service providers. The Promoting Excellence dementia skills framework, which is designed to help services meet the dementia standards, requires staff working at “Enhanced” level and above to understand the potential impact of a diagnosis of dementia on people with learning difficulties.

The new national HEAT target on post-diagnostic support provides the commitment that all people newly diagnosed with dementia from 1 April 2013, including those with a learning difficulty, will receive a minimum of a year’s worth of detailed and personalised care, treatment and support, coordinated by a link worker.

People with learning disabilities have a higher risk of developing dementia compared to the general population, with a significantly increased risk for people with Down syndrome and at a much earlier age. As part of the second National Dementia Strategy, to be published in June 2013, we intend to undertake a specific piece of work looking at the need for national action around linkages between dementia and other disabilities and chronic conditions; and the need for national action around early onset dementia.

There are currently 140 dentistry vocational training (DVT) places available in Scotland, and NHS Education for Scotland is in the process of seeking additional dental practices willing to provide DVT in 2013.

There are several ways that a graduate dentist may gain employment within the NHSScotland without having to undertake vocational training (VT). Individuals can work within the NHSScotland as an assistant in the delivery of NHS General Dental Services (GDS) for an indefinite period.

It is also possible for a dentist to be employed in the community or hospital dental services. And, where a dentist wishes to work in the Salaried Service, a requirement if they wish to become a principal within the GDS, they may apply for a VT number through the VT Equivalence Panel, by demonstrating that their skills and experience equate to one year of VT.