Chamber and committees

To date four strategicgroups have been established to finalise action plans that will inform the ScottishExecutive’s National Strategy and Action Plan for Race Equality, which is dueto be published later this year. The groups are:

Race Equality in Rural Areas- to help build inclusive rural communities.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/18934/15832.

Gypsies/Travellers - toenable the provision of more accessible, co-ordinated and good quality servicesfor Gypsies/Travellers.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/gypsiestravellers/strategy.

Ethnic Minorities and theLabour Market - to increase the number of people from ethnic minorities in thelabour market and to address barriers to their participation.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/18934/15832.

Scottish Refugee IntegrationForum - to address any new and emerging issues affecting integration since thelast Action Plan was published.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/Refugees-asylum/integration.

Group members have been selectedfor their personal knowledge and expertise of the issues, and attend meetingseither in an individual capacity or as representatives of the organisationsfrom the public, private and voluntary sectors that we have invited toparticipate in our work.

Notes of all strategicgroups’ meetings, which include group members’ and attendees’ details, areavailable on the Scottish Executive website at the addresses given above. Thesepages will be updated as more information becomes available.

 

A revised Scottish RefugeeIntegration Forum action plan will be published in the autumn as part of the nationalstrategy and action plan for race equality in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive doesnot hold information on the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children in Scotland. However,I understand that the Home Office maintains a database on unaccompanied asylumseeker children who are supported by local authorities.

The Home Office is primarilyresponsible for ensuring the implementation of this Directive. However, therehave been discussions between the Executive and the Home Office to ensure that,where devolved services are involved, Scottish legislation is compliant with therequirements of the Directive.

The Scottish Executive doesnot measure destitution among asylum seekers.

The Scottish Executive doesnot hold this information as it is for the Home Office to consider requests forpermission to work.

The Scottish Executive has noplans to amend the bursary regulations to include such children. Executive fundsto authorities towards the cost of bursaries cease at the end of this financialyear, as bursaries are superseded by the Education Maintenance Allowance.

The SPCB is committed to providingaccessible facilities for disabled people and their carers, and has taken anumber of steps to enable the equal participation of disabled people and theircarers in the Parliament including accessing the tours and other major events, theinstallation of adult changing benches and the provision of special receptaclesin the accessible toilets located in the public foyer and garden lobby. Wecontinue to monitor and improve upon our accessibility and as part of this weare currently investigating the feasibility of installing a hoist into one of the “megaloos”.

As part of a widerinitiative to implement the new Disability Equality Duty which will come intoforce on 5 December 2006, we have established a Disability Equality Delivery Group,whose membership includes representatives of the disability networks with aremit to review our current performance on disability issues, including access,and recommend ways forward to improve disability equality.

Should the member have anyspecific concerns, she is more than welcome to discuss this in more detail withthe SPCB’s equalities manager.

The majority of patients whorequire in-patient and day case treatment, including hernia operations, are treatedquickly. Nearly 53% of the patients treated in NHSScotland hospitals receive immediatetreatment and never join a waiting list. Of those who do wait almost 41% are admittedwithin one month and over 70% within three months.

For those who wait longer, thecurrent maximum waiting time is six months. This guarantee will be reduced to 18weeks from the end of 2007. On 31 March 2006, no NHSScotland patient with a guarantee had waited morethan six months for in-patient and day case treatment.

Median waiting times are derivedfrom information about individual patients who have been treated and dischargedfrom hospital during each year. This data includes patients who have had an AvailabilityStatus Code (ASC) applied, for example because they were medically unfit or askedfor their admission to be deferred for personal or social reasons, and to whom theExecutive’s waiting time guarantee did not apply. Periods of unavailability fortreatment are therefore included in the calculation of median waiting times, whichmeans that the median waits are overstated.

The following table shows themedian wait, by NHS board, for all patients who were discharged from hospital followinga hernia operation in 2005.

NHSScotland: Median WaitingTime for a Hernia¹ Operation by NHS Board of residence. Year ending 31December 2005^P

NHS Board Area	Median Wait (Days)+
Argyll and Clyde	77
Ayrshire and Arran	98
Borders	56
Dumfries and Galloway	79
Fife	113
Forth Valley	115
Grampian	122
Greater Glasgow	74
Highland	105
Lanarkshire	144
Lothian	124
Orkney	54*
Shetland	39*
Tayside	93
Western Isles	40
NHSScotland	98

Source:ISD SMR01.

^PProvisional.

Notes:

1.Hernia operations are defined as all OPCS4 procedures “T19” to “T27” inclusive.

* Figures should be treatedwith caution as they are derived from a possibly unrepresentative small number ofdischarges (more than 14 but less than 50).

⁺ Median waits includes patients with an Availability Status Code. Consequently, true waiting timesare likely to be overstated because of periods of medical unavailability, etc.

The information requested isnot available centrally.