Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government supports the expansion of podiatric surgery across NHSScotland and a number of NHS boards are already designing orthopaedic services, using the expertise of podiatrists and physiotherapists, to triage patients and ensure they are seen promptly by the most appropriate healthcare professional.

Building on the podiatric surgery pilot in NHS Greater Glasgow, the Scottish Government has tasked NHS Education for Scotland to develop an accredited surgical training model to educate trainee podiatrists in podiatric surgery. A steering group has been formed to oversee this work, and its membership is drawn from the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists (also the Faculty of Podiatric Surgery), the Royal College of Orthopaedic Surgeons (Edinburgh), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow), the British Orthopaedic Association, the Health Professions Council and higher education institutions.

We expect the training model to be made available by the end of this year.

The Scottish Funding Council does not allocate specific amounts of funding for podiatry. Podiatry falls within the Scottish Funding Council’s Other Health and Welfare funding subject group. The table below provides the gross funding for teaching allocated to the undergraduate level of the Other Health and Welfare funding subject group. The table notes provide further information on funding arrangements and how subject funding relates to provision.

Table 1: Gross funding for teaching allocated to the undergraduate level of the Other Health and Welfare funding subject group for Higher Education Institutions offering podiatry provision, 2007-08 to 2010-11:

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

The Scottish Funding Council does not allocate specific amounts of funding for podiatry. Podiatry falls within the Scottish Funding Council’s Other Health and Welfare funding subject group. The funding for Other Health and Welfare excludes funding for nursing and midwifery pre-registration provision that is controlled.

The Scottish Funding Council allocates a gross amount of funding to each funding subject group for each level of study (taught postgraduate, undergraduate) dependent on the number of funded places allocated to the group and the unit of resource for the group. For each institution, an estimate of the amount of tuition fee income associated with an institution’s total allocation of funded places is removed from the gross funding for teaching to obtain the allocations of Main Teaching Grant.

Institutions are not expected to match their allocations of funding per funding subject group in terms of their spend on teaching provision. Also institutions have certain flexibility in terms of how they use their allocations of funded places. Institutions might not end up with as much provision as their allocation of funded places in one subject area but instead might have more provision than funded places in another subject area.

The total gross funding for teaching for each university excludes funding for any strategic places funded through the Scottish Funding Council’s Horizon Fund and for any additional places funded by the Scottish Government.

The EU Council Recommendation on An Action in the field of Rare Diseases was published on 8 June 2009, and contains a number of recommendations for EU member states to take forward between now and 2013, including “plans and strategies in the field of rare diseases”. Led by the Department of Health all four UK Health Departments are working together to prepare a national (UK) plan for rare diseases and are taking into account Rare Disease UK’s (RDUK) Improving Lives, Optimising Resources: A Vision for the UK Rare Disease Strategy report, designed to inform the UK plan.

The draft plan is in its very early stages. However, it is understood that officials from the Department of Health intend to meet with representatives from RDUK in August, to provide them with an update of the progress that has been made.

The Scottish Government is also committed to taking forward the strategic vision in Scotland in discussion with RDUK and we have offered to meet them as the plan develops.

The National Records of Scotland, like its predecessor bodies, has always charged the same prices to MSPs as to members of the public.

Information on the number of allied health professional staff by profession, including podiatry, broken down by NHS board, is published on the NHS National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/publications/2011-0628/AHP.xls.

NHS boards’ workforce plans focus on their own staffing needs to provide high quality care in response to local circumstances and demand.

Scottish Ambulance Service staff are employed under the terms of Agenda for Change which grants staff an uninterrupted break of at least 20 minutes in any shift longer than six hours. How this is then managed is an operational matter for the employer concerned.

I have been clear that following the tragic incidents at both Tomintoul and Crieff, current arrangements for handling rest breaks in the Scottish Ambulance Service cannot remain in place as they are not in the interests of the public or of our hardworking and dedicated ambulance staff.

Urgent talks are currently ongoing between management and staff within the Scottish Ambulance Service with a view to preventing any further incidents where rest breaks are seen as affecting response times in emergencies. I am being kept fully informed of progress with these talks and have urged both management and the trades unions involved to resolve this untenable situation as quickly as possible.

I have been clear that following the tragic incidents at both Tomintoul and Crieff, current arrangements for handling rest breaks in the Scottish Ambulance Service cannot remain in place as they are not in the interests of the public or of our hardworking and dedicated ambulance staff.

The key consideration here is to prevent any further incidents where rest breaks are seen as affecting response times in emergencies. Negotiations in this respect are being taken forward urgently and until the outcome is known it is not possible to quantify any additional costs which may be involved.

In general terms, the Scottish Ambulance Service carries out periodic reviews of shifts operated by accident and emergency resources to determine the need for any adjustments to shift rosters or resource skill mix.

The Scottish Ambulance Service advise that their shift review policy, developed in Partnership, ensures the process is carried out for valid reasons, can demonstrate a case for change, and is designed to enhance the provision of services and improve the response to calls. A shift review may be considered necessary for one or more of the following reasons:

An evidence based change in demand exists.

Evidence based change in resources are becoming available to the station or work place (increase or decrease in staff).

Staff wanting a shift pattern which better supports work life balance.

External development requiring a different working pattern/ arrangement.

Non achievement of performance targets e.g. operational or clinical.

Health and Safety or other statutory issue.

The Scottish Ambulance Service have recently procured a new demand modelling software package and this is currently being put in place to support future shift reviews. Consideration will thereafter be given to conducting shift reviews in the area covered by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and this is an operational matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

In advance of a shift review being carried out, it is not possible to predict whether there would be any changes to shift patterns of levels of resource in a particular area.

The National Records of Scotland has always made charges for certain of its services. For example, the charge for a replacement birth certificate goes back to 1855, and the ScotlandsPeople website has involved a charge per view since it was started in the late 1990s. There has been no recent change in the charging policy although some charges were increased earlier in the year in accordance with The Registration Services (Fees) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2010 (SSI 2010 No 427). Charges are generally set in Statutory Instruments, on which consultation has taken place. If the member has a specific charge in mind, I would be happy to provide further information.