Chamber and committees

Yes.

The law requires that any action for damages arising from a personal injury – including asbestos-related diseases - should be made within a three-year period.

The Scottish Government is committed to modernising the law on damages for personal injury and intends to publish a consultation paper, by the end of the year, which will be informed by the Scottish Law Commission’s report and recommendations on Limitation and Prescribed Cases. This consultation paper will set out the Scottish Government’s policy position on principles relating to the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 and invite views on how the law should be reformed.

Following consultation, it would be our intention to legislate on these issues in the course of this Parliament. The terms of such legislation will of course take account of the outcome of the consultation.

Tables setting out the number of patients and costs, by NHS board, who were referred to the pain management centre at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, in Bath, in 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and in 2012-13 (up to 21 September 2012) are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number:54296). The information requested is not available for 2007-08.

It is for the Scottish Ambulance Service to recruit and train staff to meet service needs and to ensure that an appropriate mix of paramedics and ambulance technicians is in place to provide front line services. The Scottish Government has committed to providing funding to recruit and retain around 150 additional front line staff as part of the deal to move ambulance crews to a 37.5 hour week inclusive of rest breaks. A proportion of these will be paramedics. I understand 40 students finished their initial training in August and are now deployed, that a further 64 students started training in August, and that applications for the 80 places available on the training course which starts in December are presently being considered.

The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2012 places a duty on the relevant authorities, in this case local authorities and NHS boards, to keep up to date records on the location and condition of asbestos-containing materials in their premises. This information is not collated centrally by the Scottish Government.

The regulatory body of the doctors, the General Medical Council (GMC) states that “for a relationship between a doctor and patient to be effective, it should be a partnership based on openness, trust and good communication.”

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that our healthcare services are truly person centred and, through our Quality Strategy, NHSScotland is also working towards delivering a high quality, safe and person-centred service. If a clinician withholds information from a patient, we would expect the doctor to follow the guidance of the GMC which says:

“If you withhold information from the patient you must record your reason for doing so in the patient’s medical records, and you must be prepared to explain and justify your decision. You should regularly review your decision, and consider whether you could give information to the patient later, without causing them serious harm”.

Clinicians in NHS Scotland are expected to follow GMC recommendations.

Occupational health and matters relating to health and safety at work, including the removal of asbestos from buildings, are reserved and subject to Health and Safety Regulations. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/632) places a duty on the owners or leaseholders of all non-domestic buildings, including schools and hospitals, to manage the risk from asbestos.

In the case of publicly funded schools, this duty rests with local authorities; with regard to hospitals this is a matter for NHS boards. For independent schools, the duty rests with the proprietors for individual schools.

In September 2009, Scottish Government wrote to all local authorities to bring to their attention health and safety matters in schools, including asbestos management. The letter sought to raise the profile of this issue and to request that all authorities contact the Health and Safety Executive to confirm they were managing the risks appropriately.

We are still considering our options to provide review arrangements for the Social Fund successor scheme.

This government firmly believes that children in Scotland deserve the best possible start in life and we do not want to see any child being born into or condemned to live a life of poverty. It is simply morally unacceptable that 17% of our children still live in relative poverty.

We are doing all we can to tackle poverty and inequality in Scotland, within the limited powers and resources we have. It is very difficult to make an impact on the headline figures while personal taxation and welfare benefits policy are reserved to the UK Government.

Workless households include those households who are both unemployed and inactive. Further analysis indicates that the increase in the number of children in workless households in Scotland has been driven by increases in unemployment. However, due to the underlying sample size of the data source it is not possible to look at this change in more detail.

Due to the underlying sample size of the data source it is not possible to look at this change in more detail.

The Scottish Government is committed to better understanding, and addressing, the complex reasons behind parental worklessness. Our forthcoming women's employment summit will be a step towards that aim. At the same time, we are refreshing our employability framework to take account of the difficult economic conditions and the barriers that a range of people face to finding and sustaining employment. This includes consideration of how to better support people with health conditions and disabilities into work.

Source: Labour Force Survey Households datasets April to June 2012, ONS.