Chamber and committees

We will study the recommendations made in the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report on Dentistry – an OFT market study where they are applicable to dentistry in Scotland, and consider if any action requires to be taken.

Guidance for the conduct of the industrial action has been agreed between NHSScotland employers and the British Medical Association, and has been issued to all boards and local negotiating committees. This guidance encourages doctors to give advance notice of intended action in order that patient safety is not compromised.

In line with the guidance, doctors fulfilling their contractual duties on 21 June 2012 will receive payment as normal. Employers are entitled to withhold pay where doctors do not fulfil all or any of their contractual commitments. Therefore, doctors undertaking some but not all of their duties will receive appropriate part payment for their work.

Hospital cleanliness is a priority for the Scottish Government and to ensure that the highest standards are maintained we have put in place a comprehensive programme of actions. All hospitals must regularly report compliance with the requirements set out in the NHSScotland National Cleaning Services Specification and independent assurance is provided by the Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI). Additionally, we have made available £5 million of additional resources to boards every year since 2009 to pay for hundreds of additional cleaning staff.

Raigmore Hospital’s cleaning compliance score has remained above 90% and the last HEI unannounced inspection carried out in March 2011 reported that the hospital was clean and the general environment was well maintained. However, following an outbreak of Clostridium difficile in January 2012 the board published a significant event report which found standards of cleanliness were sub-optimal in both the affected wards and that this was primarily due to staffing and infrastructure issues. I have received assurance from NHS Highland that these have been addressed as a matter of urgency as per the recommendations in their report.

The Scottish Workforce and Staff Governance Committee has previously considered the issue of a helpline and concluded that it was not required at that stage. However, I am asking the committee to revisit the issue of a helpline, in light of the implementation of the new Implementing & Reviewing Whistleblowing Arrangements in NHSScotland Partnership Information Network (PIN) Policy, and the recent Lothian report, and report back to me before the end of the year.

My officials provide me with a report on the quarterly statistics published by ISD on waiting times. These reports include information on the number of patients who are socially unavailable at the census date that the publication relates to and compares it with the position in the previous quarter.

Following the report on NHS Lothian management of waiting times, which I commissioned from Price Waterhouse Cooper’s, I now also receive specific information on retrospective changes to earlier data as part of the quarterly reporting of waiting times.

I received the Audit Scotland report on 26 February 2010. Most actions were specifically for NHS boards to take forward and not for the Scottish Government. A range of actions were taken forward following the report. A number of these were set out when the then Director General for Health wrote to NHS Chief Executives in May 2010, asking them to undertake a review of their local processes to ensure that their systems hold and allow the transfer of information on patients’ additional needs, such as language requirements.

NHS boards provide delivery trajectories and risk management plans for waiting times targets and standards as part of their local delivery plans. This provides a factual basis for monitoring performance. The Scottish Government collects monthly management information to assess actual versus planned performance.

The Scottish Government also monitors the comprehensive set of waiting times statistics published on a quarterly basis by ISD. These include not just performance against the waiting time target and standards but also information such as number of did not attend, reasons for removal from lists, number of patient medically socially unavailable etc.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-07271 on 25 May 2012. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has confirmed that the clinically-led review of laboratory services in the Clyde area commenced at the end of May 2011 under the management of the Clyde Review Steering Group. This was concluded in October 2011, approved by the Clyde Review Steering Group at its meeting on 4 November 2011 and subsequently approved by the board. The Diagnostics Directorate is in the process of implementing the recommendations from the review and it is anticipated that this will be concluded by the end of 2012.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is committed to providing high quality laboratory services to support the Vale of Leven Hospital. The changes to the laboratory services at the Vale are part of a wider commitment to deliver high quality, sustainable improvements in local patient care. Between 09:00 and 20:00 laboratory services will remain unchanged for inpatients, and will be carried out at the newly refurbished laboratory facility at the Vale, completed in 2011 at a cost of approximately £350,000. The new facility provides an improved standard of accommodation from within the main hospital building to ensure rapid access for inpatient and urgent outpatient requests. Outwith these hours, initial acute patient management will be enhanced by the introduction of point of care testing. The use of this new technology will enhance patient care, reduce waiting time and streamline clinical decision making. Non-urgent tests which are required out of hours and samples from primary care will be processed at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) at Paisley. These tests will be carried out within the same timeframe as is the case currently, and this is consistent with the clinical service model elsewhere in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, e.g. GP samples are currently transferred from Victoria Hospital to the Southern General Hospital, and from Stobhill Hospital to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. In addition, GP microbiology samples are already transferred from the Vale to the RAH.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have estimated these transport costs at £52,000. This needs to be seen within the overall context of up to £1 million savings made – to be reinvested in patient care - as part of the revised model, delivered under the Vision for the Vale. These savings have been generated by the more efficient use of staff time and equipment under the new clinical service model, which will also maintain the high quality service for the benefit of patients.