Chamber and committees

In addition, a 2013 survey of the GP workforce in general practices and the NHS board out of hours services is currently underway. The results of the survey, anticipated to include estimates of the whole time equivalent numbers of GPs working in Scotland overall with geographical breakdown by NHS board and CHP, will be published later in the year.

The New Medicines Review, which is considering all aspects of access to new medicines, was established on 14 January 2013.

We have received regular updates on the progress of the review since its inception.

The investigation is concluded and a report has been made. This is now a matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service to take forward.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) monitors and publishes point prevalence surveillance data on a weekly basis by board reporting the number of hospitals and wards closed due to presumed or confirmed norovirus. This is management information data and not official statistics. This provides an indication of the impact that the norovirus is having on NHS Scotland but it is not incidence data. For example, it would not include an outbreak which started on a Tuesday and was over by a Sunday, while a ward closure occurring on a Monday that was still on-going the following Monday would be counted twice even though it related to a single outbreak.

These norovirus prevalence reports are published by HPS at:

http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/haiic/ic/noroviruspointprev.aspx.

We have asked HPS to produce board, hospitals and ward prevalence information for the years you have requested and I will write to you once this information becomes available. However, HPS cannot provide named hospitals within the boards.

The Equality Act 2010, places duties on NHS boards to reduce inequalities in access to health care and improve health outcomes for people. On 1 October 2012, new provisions in the Equality Act 2010 came into force, introducing a ban on unjustifiable age discrimination.

The equality team within NHS Health Scotland, are working to strengthen equality of access for all in NHS Scotland through their health inequalities impact assessment (HIIA). Impact assessment is an important tool for NHS boards to check their policies and services do not inadvertently exclude or discriminate groups within the population and it is an opportunity to promote equality of opportunity and good relations.

The Scottish Medicines Consortiums(SMC) processes for appraising orphan medicines are the same as that for any other medicine. However, in recognition of the small patient populations involved, the SMC can consider application of its modifiers which allow greater flexibility in its decision-making to allow consideration of additional factors such as accepting more uncertainty in the health economic case or a higher cost per Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY).

The Scottish Government supports a national infrastructure and related support for financial inclusion and financial awareness, including training for debt advisors and a Financial Learning Online Scotland website for financial capability practitioners. On 21 January 2013, the Deputy First Minister announced a £5.4 million funding package for advice services designed to help them manage the growing number of requests for help as a result of UK Government’s welfare reforms.

Work in communities across Scotland on financial inclusion and financial capability is taken forward by local authorities, who are well placed to assess local need for services and put in place appropriate provision.

The Scottish Government’s HL2 Return gives snapshot information on the number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter.

Table 2 in the following file gives the number of households with children in bed and breakfast at the end of each quarter.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/TempAccomJulySept2012

The following table gives the number of homeless applications where at least one member of the household had slept rough on the night immediately before they made their homelessness application.

Source: Scottish Government HL1 dataset as 27 Feb 2013.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is a rare lung condition, the cause of which is unknown. It can be difficult to diagnose as the main symptoms are similar to other lung conditions. Diagnosis will usually be made by a respiratory specialist and may involve a number of tests including chest x-ray, CT scan and in some cases lung biopsy.

Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks have been established in all NHS health boards across Scotland, supported by pump priming funding from the Scottish Government. Our National Advisory Group (NAG) for Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks is working to develop a co-ordinated approach to improving respiratory services across Scotland and provides the opportunity for Local Managed Clinical Networks, patient representatives and stakeholders to discuss issues, identify solutions and share best practice.