Chamber and committees

Prescribing costs are funded from NHS board baseline budget allocations provided by the Scottish Government.

Territorial NHS boards received a 2.9% increase in baseline funding in 2012-13. Subject to Scottish Parliament approval, territorial NHS boards will receive increases in baseline funding of 3.3% and 3.1% in 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively. It is for NHS boards to determine how best to utilise baseline funding to meet the healthcare needs of their resident population.

The increase in baseline funding provided to territorial NHS boards in 2011-12 included £57 million to meet the projected cost of the abolition of prescription charges. This is a recurring source of funding for NHS boards and is thus included in their baseline budgets in future years.

Around 7,500 young people will be supported towards and into work as a result of the announcements made to date on the Youth Employment Strategy Fund.

These opportunities will be provided through interventions such as Community Jobs Scotland, The Third Sector Challenge Fund, Employment Recruitment Incentives and local authority delivered interventions.

In addition, we expect around 15,000 young people will benefit from other sources of Scottish Government or European funding.

The £30 million Youth Employment Strategy funding has been allocated as follows:

£1.5 million over three years to support 1,000 of the most disadvantaged young people, including care leavers, young carers and young ex-offenders;

£6 million to support Community Jobs Scotland in 2012-13;

£2.5 million for a challenge fund to support social enterprises and the third sector provide opportunities to young unemployed people, and

£9 million for six local authorities with particular youth unemployment challenges.

There is £11 million available for the period April 2013 to March 2015.

This information is not held centrally. I will ask the Chief Executive of Skills Development Scotland to write to you with the information you have requested.

This information is not held centrally. I will ask the Chief Executive of Skills Development Scotland to write to you with the information you have requested.

The Scottish Government continually considers risks from changes in reserved policy when carrying out its devolved responsibilities.

While the UK Government has begun to provide a greater level of detail on its welfare reforms there are still significant gaps in our knowledge which hinder our ability to undertake robust analysis in this area. However, as more details are made available we are building up a better picture of the impact of the reforms on Scottish individuals and households. We hope that this work can inform how best the Scottish Government, with its partners, can respond to these changes within the current constitutional settlement.

We are not aware of any systematic evidence to suggest that Scottish patients are being disadvantaged in terms of access to medicines or devices of proven effectiveness.

To help ensure that patients can gain appropriate access to new treatments, boards are supported by robust mechanisms on advice and guidance, including the Scottish Medicines Consortium, the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Scottish Health Technologies Group.

There has been substantial investment and redesign in cardiology services over the last 15 years. The Audit Scotland report (February 2012) shows that there has been significant progress in tackling heart disease and developing services. Premature mortality has dropped by 40 per cent in 10 years, more patients are getting better treatment and waiting times for treatment have fallen.

The Scottish Government’s policy on heart disease is set out in our “Better Heart Disease and Stroke Care Action Plan” which reaffirms the expectation that all NHS boards provide safe, effective and person-centred services. Implementation of the Action Plan will support further reductions in the number of deaths from heart disease.

The following table provides the number of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases since 2007:

NHS Board	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	2	0	0
Borders	1	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	1
Fife	0	0	2	2	1
Forth Valley	0	0	0	0	0
Grampian	5	3	1	2	1
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	5	7	9	6	8
Highland	0	0	1	1	7
Lanarkshire	1	1	0	0	2
Lothian	2	3	5	4	7
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
Tayside	1	2	2	1	0
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0
Total	15	16	22	16	27

Notes:

*All data for 2011 is still provisional.

**Excludes M bovis resistance to pyrazinamide.

NHS boards recently reported to the Scottish Government on progress made in relation to the recommendations in the TB Action Plan for Scotland. This information will form the basis of the annual report which will be published by the end of this year.

<>In March 2011, the Scottish Government published a TB Action Plan for Scotland which aims to reduce the incidence of tuberculosis. The Action Plan is primarily intended for those involved in the delivery of TB-related services in Scotland and sets out a range of actions on key themes such as laboratory services, clinical services, surveillance and public health services. The plan can be accessed at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/03/18095603/0.

Work is ongoing to take forward the recommendations, and an Action Plan Monitoring Group has been established by the Scottish Government with representatives from NHS boards, Health Protection Scotland and professional bodies involved in work across TB.