Chamber and committees

The following local authorities are known to have well-being alliances:

Angus	East Dunbartonshire	Highland
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	Fife	North Ayrshire
Dundee City	Glasgow	Perth and Kinross

COSLA's Public Health Improvement Team have indicated that they intend to undertake a dialogue and audit of local authorities development as health improvement organisations and expect to identify partnership and alliance working from this exercise. Other local authorities may also have these alliances but information on this is not held centrally.Most local authorities have, within the community planning process, set up joint working groups to produce Joint Health Improvement Plans for their areas.

Guidance on Family Friendly Policies was prepared in partnership with the service, trade unions and the professions, and published in January 2000. This document contains a section on child care, and lists the provision of workplace nurseries as an option that employers should consider. The guidance underpins the Staff Governance Standard and all NHS Scotland Employers are required to meet or exceed it. Employers' progress towards meeting the guidance will be part of the annual Staff Governance Standard audit process.NHS Organisations receive Scottish Executive funding each year, and the decision of how much of this money to allocate to provision of child care is made locally based on local priorities and circumstances. Some help with start up costs for nurseries may be available from local Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-33183 on 23 January 2003. 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/webapp/search_wa.

All NHS boards have Health Promotion Departments which employ staff whose aim is to build the capacity of the public, business and voluntary sectors to promote the health of communities and individuals. These staff have various responsibilities of which health improvement is one. In addition NHS boards, local authorities and the Scottish Executive are jointly funding health improvement posts based in each local authority area. 31 of these posts are currently filled. The responsibilities of these postholders are to support and contribute to the development of joint local Health Improvement Plans, facilitate their implementation through service planning and delivery in each local authority area, work with council services to develop and support their contribution to the health improvement agenda and to facilitate partnership working between local authorities and others, particularly NHS boards, in ways which will contribute to the joint health improvement agenda.

Partnership Information Network guidelines underpin the Staff Governance Standard and are an integral part of the Performance Assessment Framework which is the overarching process under which NHSScotland employers are held accountable. NHSScotland employers progress towards implementing the guidelines are monitored through completion of the Self Assessment Audit Tool (SAAT) which has been developed by and approved by the Scottish Partnership forum (SPF), Clinical Standards Board for Scotland (now Quality Improvement Scotland), Clinical Negligence Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS) and Audit Scotland and which all employers are required to complete. The SAAT will be the subject of independent assessment by appointed external auditors, in partnership with the SPF. In addition to the SAAT, all employers are required to conduct an annual staff survey and to produce actions plans for improvement towards meeting the aims of the Staff Governance Standard. External auditors together with an SPF member will be expected to validate employers action plans and provide independent assurance that:the self-assessment process is robust;the action plan is agreed and is credible, andthe action plan is being delivered (year on year).The aims and objectives of the Performance Assessment Framework will be woven into managers job tasks and activities and their performance in meeting these and the action plans will be influenced by the SAAT independent audit which in turn will impact on pay for performance.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The information requested is not held centrally. Information on vacancies in each NHS Acute Trust, broken down by speciality is available. This information is substantial and I will write to the member with a full answer. This will also be placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

The information requested is not available centrally. Information on vacancies in each NHS Acute Trust, broken down by speciality is available. This information is substantial and I will write to the member with a full answer. This will also be placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

To ensure that waiting lists are kept up to date and reflect the personal wishes and circumstances of patients, and to enable the most efficient use of specialised services, NHS trusts may contact patients to check that they continue to wish treatment. If a patient did not respond to attempts to contact them to enquire about their desire to remain on a waiting list, it would be good clinical practice for the patient to be referred back to their primary care team to determine if treatment is still clinically appropriate.

The member may access this information on the Information and Statistics Division of the Common Services Agency website at:http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd/Joint_futures/delayed_discharges/ready_for_discharges.htm.