Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government''s consultation on Blue Badge reform has been running since 12 July 2010 and will close on 8 October 2010. The consultation was issued to over 300 stakeholders and organisations and is available on the Scottish Government''s website. We have had a good number of responses so far, the majority of which have been from Blue Badge holders.

Whether a time limit should be placed on parking on double and single yellow lines is one of the areas under consideration as part of the current Blue Badge reform consultation. The Scottish Government''s decision on this will fully take into consideration the responses that are received to the consultation and the important road safety purpose which these road markings serve.

The Blue Badge scheme has been running since 1971, originally known as the Orange Badge scheme. The Scottish Government is currently undertaking a wide ranging consultation on the scheme to ensure that it remains fit for purpose in the 21st Century. No decisions on any possible alterations to the scheme will be considered until the consultation period has ended on 8 October 2010 and the responses analysed.

The following table shows the number of hospital stays where cardiac arrest is recorded as the main, or secondary diagnosis, in any episode within the hospital stay combined with the number of out-of-hospital registered deaths, where cardiac arrest is recorded as the underlying or a contributing cause of death, and the estimated number and percentage of patients discharged alive at the end of an acute continuous inpatient hospital stay. Data are shown for Scotland in the latest year ending 31 March 2010^P.

Scotland for Year Ending 31 March	Number of Cardiac Arrests	Number of Cardiac Arrest Patients Admitted to Hospital	Estimated Number of Cardiac Arrest Survivors Discharged Alive from Hospital	Estimated % of Cardiac Arrests Discharged Alive from Hospital
2010P	1,652	1,117	349	21.1%

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland.

Deaths occurring in the community, in the ambulance or on arrival in the emergency department and recorded as myocardial infarction may have been from a cardiac arrest. It is important to note that data on out-of-hospital deaths from cardiac arrest are probably underestimates and hence the survival rates are likely to be overestimates.

Notes:

1. The basic unit of analysis for these figures is the number of cardiac arrests recorded either in a continuous stay (CIS) in hospital or on a death registration. Probability matching methods have been used to link together death registrations from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) and individual SMR01 hospital episodes for each patient, thereby creating linked patient histories. Within these patient histories, SMR01 episodes are grouped according to whether they form part of a continuous spell of treatment (whether or not this involves transfer between hospitals or even NHS boards).

2. All discharges (hospital stays) with a main or secondary diagnosis of cardiac arrest in addition to all deaths where cardiac arrest is recorded as the underlying or one of 10 secondary causes of death are included in the analysis. Death registrations corresponding to linked hospital discharges are excluded. The discharge code from the last SMR01 episode within the CIS determines whether the patient was discharged from the continuous stay alive or dead.

3. These statistics are based on the linked data set of SMR01 (Scottish Morbidity Record 01) and death records held by ISD Scotland. SMR01 collects information on inpatient and day case discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals in Scotland. The linkage and use of the death records is by permission of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).

4. Up to six diagnoses (one main and five secondary) may be recorded on an SMR01 record. Up to 10 causes of death (underlying and secondary) may be recorded on the GROS death registration. All diagnoses position on any SMR01 record of a hospital stay and all causes of death have been used to identify cardiac arrest admissions or out of hospital deaths. Cardiac arrest has been defined using ICD10 code I46.

5. There will be some cases of myocardial infarction (MI) where a cardiac arrest occurred during the hospital stay but was not mentioned on the discharge summary.

The information requested is not centrally available.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The National Infertility Group has been asked to look at the issues raised in the interim report from Infertility Network Scotland. The group will deliver its first report to ministers by the end of 2010.

HM Inspectorate of Education has no specific role in monitoring the education of individual children whether home educated or otherwise.

Parents do not require consent from a local authority to home educate their children. As explained in the previous response, consent is only required from a local authority if parents or carers wish to withdraw their child from a local authority school in the area in which they reside.

There is no requirement to register with a local authority. Both parents and proposed carers have a duty to notify private fostering arrangements to the local authority in which the child will be living at least two weeks before the child is placed. In an emergency, where this is not possible, the local authority should be notified of the placement within one week of the placement.

These duties and the information to be provided to the local authority are set out in The Foster Children (Scotland) Act 1984 and The Foster Children (Private Fostering) (Scotland) Regulations 1985.