Chamber and committees

Our National Health: A plan for action, a plan for change confirmed the Executive's commitment to working with others to move the focus of health policy and health services from treatment to prevention. While occupational health and safety is a reserved matter, it has a strong bearing on many devolved areas, such as health, local government, transport and the environment. The Executive has been tackling this broad agenda in partnership with the UK government, Scottish local authorities, NHSScotland, the CBI, the TUC, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce, Scotland's Health at Work, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and others. This joint activity includes, for example, the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative; Securing Health Together - a long-term occupational strategy for Scotland, England and Wales; Towards a Safer, Healthier Workplace, the occupational health and safety strategy for NHSScotland, and Tomorrow's Roads - safer for everyone, a strategy to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents in Great Britain by 40% by 2010. The Health and Safety Executive is also contributing to the Job Retention and Rehabilitation Pilot, led by the Department of Work and Pensions.

The Executive has not made any such representations and has no plans to do so.The Medicines Control Agency continuously monitors the safety of all medicines. If new side effects are detected, the product information is updated to ensure it contains all of the available information to aid the safe use of the medicine. The adverse reactions known to be associated with Roaccutane treatment are fully described in the product information, which consists of a Summary of Product Characteristic for healthcare professionals and a Patient Information Leaflet for patients.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) within the Scottish Executive Health Department has responsibility for encouraging and supporting research into health services and patient care within the NHS in Scotland. The CSO has no plans for research into Isotretinoin but would be pleased to consider research proposals, which would be subject to the usual peer and committee review.

The information requested is not available.

The review of Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH) was conducted on behalf of the Common Services Agency. The review of the structure of SCIEH is on-going and is the subject of consultation with staff. Interim management arrangements have been made, including the appointment of an Interim General Manager, Acting Clinical Director and Human Resources Manager, who will work with existing staff within SCIEH to review current methods and ensure the recommendations in the review are put in place. The Director of SCIEH has relinquished his role in SCIEH and is currently on project work outwith the organisation.

The Scottish Executive has made a substantial investment in GP systems and in community nurse access to IT.The Scottish Executive has set up a steering group to take forward the extension of nurse prescribing. Infrastructure to support the extension of nurse prescribing is one of the issues being considered by the group. This will include consideration of the potential for computer generated prescriptions where appropriate.

The guidance issued to all nurse prescribers states very clearly the requirement to enter nurse prescribing information into the GP patient record and that the timescales for doing this need to be agreed with the GP. The detailed content of the patient record held by GPs is a matter for the GPs themselves.The Scottish Executive has set up a steering group to take forward the extension of nurse prescribing. One of the members of that group is a GP. Infrastructure to support the extension of nurse prescribing is one of the issues being considered by the group.

The guidance issued to all nurse prescribers states very clearly the requirement to enter nurse prescribing information into the GP patient record, and that the timescales for doing this need to be agreed with the GP.The Scottish Executive has set up a steering group to take forward the extension of nurse prescribing. One of the members of that group is a general practitioner. Infrastructure to support the extension of nurse prescribing is one of the issues being considered by the group.

The Scottish Executive Health Department has this responsibility in the context of monitoring statistical returns from the NHS generally in order to detect major trends. Other departments and bodies also have an interest, for example, the Health and Safety Executive, the Scottish Trauma Audit Group and NHS Boards.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-19814.