Chamber and committees

Education Scotland is currently reviewing its online resources including GLOW to ensure that it further improves advice, guidance and information in respect of additional support needs. The purpose of this is to identify and address barriers to learning that arise from health and disability including conditions such as ADHD.

The impact of ADHD on the learning of individual pupils is complex and specific and varies from pupil to pupil. Therefore we do not collect that information centrally. However, as part of education authorities duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. Education authorities will identify, make provision for and review the needs of their pupils, including those with ADHD.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes national statistics each year on the additional support needs of pupils recorded by education authorities. This includes information on the location of pupils with additional support needs. These statistics are available from:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/12/4199/0 and: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/dspupcensus/pupcensus2013. Within these statistics it is likely that ADHD will be recorded by authorities under the broader category of social and emotional behavioural difficulties.

The information requested is not held centrally.

However, the Scottish Government published the Included, Engaged and Involved guidance in 2007 to support education authorities and partners in promoting attendance and managing absence from school. The guidance provides information on the follow up of absence for pupils, both immediately and in the longer term, including the stages of support for pupils, including those with additional support needs.

Information about school exclusions is published biannually and includes a breakdown of the cases of exclusion amongst pupils with additional support needs by type of need. This includes a category for those with ‘social and emotional behavioural difficulty’, but does not provide specific information about children or young people assessed as having ADHD. The information can be found in Table 14 of the exclusions supplementary dataset, which is available at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/Datasets

Following careful consideration about the use of the consequential funding arising from the UK Government’s autumn statement on 5 December 2013, on 7 January 2014 the First Minister announced his plans to extend the entitlement of free school meals to children in primary 1 to 3 from January 2015.

The Scottish Government recognises that it will take some time to implement the extended entitlement on the ground. Lead in time was identified as an important concern by local authorities in the evaluation of the primary 1 to 3 free school meal trial which was published in 2008 and can be accessed at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/08/29114033/0.

The Scottish Government will work closely with COSLA over the next year to explore how any practical implications might be addressed.

A 12 month lead in time is the same length that the UK Government is allowing to put in place the necessary arrangements for implementation of their commitments around free school meal provision in September 2014.

Child development is a core issue covered in the 27-30 month health review offered to all children. The universal health contacts at 6-8 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 13 months, 3-5 years and on entry to primary school also provide opportunities to discuss and identify developmental concerns.

Education authorities and other agencies have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, whenever they arise. An additional support need can arise for any reason and be of short or long term duration. Additional support may be required to overcome needs arising from learning environment; health or disability; family circumstances or social and emotional factors.

Access to a stroke unit care is known to be associated with a reduced risk of disability as well as death. This is evidenced in the Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) 108 and the clinical standards for stroke services which emphasise the importance of getting patients to specialist stroke services quickly to allow prompt diagnosis and treatment.

Information Scottish residents who were treated as an elective inpatient/day case or had an outpatient attendance in England for each financial year from 2003-04 to 2012-13 has been provided. This includes people whose residential address is in Scotland rather than patients sent for treatment in England by NHS Scotland.

Information on patients resident in Scotland who were treated in other EU countries is not collected centrally.

Table 1: A count of finished elective inpatient/day case admission episodes (FAEs)¹ for patients resident in Scotland² and treated in English Hospitals by health board of residence³ for the years 2003-04 to 2012-13.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

1. All elective inpatient and day case admissions are included.

2. Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector is included.

3. A finished admission episode (FAE) is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

* To protect patient confidentiality, figures between 1 and 5 have been replaced with “*” (an asterisk).

Table 2: A count of outpatient attendances for patients resident in Scotland¹ and seen in English Hospitals by health board of residence for the years 2003-04 to 2012-13.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

1. Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector is included.

Green bridges are being considered for the wider A9 dualling programme where a need is identified and will be considered on a location by location basis.

Building the capacity of the specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) workforce is essential to delivering faster access to services. Over a four year period we have invested £10 million to increase the number of child psychologists from 128 Whole Time Equivalents (WTE) in 2008 to 222 WTE in September 2013, with a further £2 million investment per year to increase the specialist CAMHS workforce. This investment has seen the size of the specialist CAMHS workforce has increased from 645 WTE in 2008 to 908 WTE in September 2013.

CAMHS workforce data is published quarterly by ISD and is available at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/CAMHS/

It is for NHS boards to decide what level of staffing is required to meet the needs of their local population.

Data contained within national publications such as the CAMHS Workforce

Publication and NHS Scotland Staff Survey are used by Information Services Division and NHS boards to support local, regional and national workforce planning.

Further information can be found at

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/CAMHS

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/12/4235/downloads#res440163

Health boards may also use Demand, Capacity, Activity and Queue methodology to assist in determining the needs of their population.