- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 11 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total value was of its Development Department contracts awarded to businesses with headquarters in Scotland; how many such contracts there were; what percentage these values and numbers represented of the total (a) value and (b) number of its Development Department contracts, and what the value was of each contract in each of the last three financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Executive does not hold this information centrally and therefore could only provide this information at disproportionate cost.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tavish Scott on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total value was of its road improvement contracts awarded to businesses with headquarters in Scotland; how many such contracts there were; what percentage these values and numbers represented of the total (a) value and (b) number of its road improvement contracts, and what the value was of each contract in each of the last three financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Executive does not hold this information centrally and therefore could only provide this information at disproportionate cost.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the new bacteriology department at Wishaw General Hospital is capable of accommodating the necessary equipment to enable the provision of a tuberculosis laboratory.
Answer
The Clinical Laboratories at Wishaw General Hospital, which opened in May 2001, are capable of providing the facilities necessary for a Clinical Microbiology Service in a District General Hospital, including the initial culture facilities required at hospital level for investigations of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis laboratory services for Lanarkshire are provided at Hairmyres Hospital.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what provision there is to allow nurses from abroad resident in Scotland to retrain to be able to nurse in Scotland.
Answer
Over the years, a number of programmes have been run locally by NHS health boards to provide internationally qualified nurses (IQN’s) with “supervised practice” programmes. This is the term used by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) as the recommended period required for a IQN to train to be “fit for practice”.
The NMC have tightened standards for IQN’s across the health care sector to ensure that they are consistent, transparent and equitable. The new standards which came into force on 1 September 2005 are now known as the Overseas Nurses Programme (ONP) and will consist of a minimum of 20 days protected teaching time. Higher education institutions (HEI’s) will hold overall responsibility for these programmes. It will be compulsory for all international applicants and its core elements must be completed successfully before applicants will be registered with the NMC.
Current timing is advantageous in setting up a structure for a national model and an expert working group was set up to review this. Recommendations from the IQN Working Group are currently being drafted for ministerial approval, outlining a national ONP model and infrastructure and support to match locally domiciled IQN’s to vacancy posts.
Partnership representation on this group included the independent sector and HEI’s who engage across the health care sector.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has made any recommendations for any particular drugs not to be used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease on the NHS.
Answer
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) provides a licence for any given medicine in the UK. This ensures that medicines meet acceptable standards on safety, quality and efficacy. The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) advises NHSScotland on the costs and benefits of new medicines after they have been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency/European Medicines Evaluation Agency.
Currently the Scottish Medicines Consortium does not recommend that Memantine (Ebixa ®) is used to treat moderately severe to severe Alzheimer’s Disease.
In England, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published an appraisal consultation document entitled “Alzheimer’s disease - donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine and memantine”. The consultation closed on 22 March 2005 and can be accessed at http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=245912. The consultation document does not constitute the Institute’s formal guidance on these drugs and the recommendation made is preliminary and may change after the consultation.
Once the final recommendation has been made NHS Quality Improvement Scotland will consider the implications of the guidance from NICE on these drugs for NHSScotland.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether a decision has been taken in respect of whether Glasgow Royal Infirmary or Hairmyres Hospital will no longer participate in the thoracic centre of excellence at the Golden Jubilee Hospital and, if so, what the reasons are for the decision.
Answer
I understand that NHS Greater Glasgow and NHS Lanarkshire have concluded that cardiothoracic services should be transferred to the Golden Jubilee National Hospital. I expect to receive the proposals for my consideration and final decision in the near future.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what provision there is for tuberculosis testing in each NHS board area.
Answer
Each of the NHS boards offers screening tests for tuberculosis in the form of skin testing, with further investigations or laboratory testing of clinical samples undertaken as determined by national guidelines on this topic.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by George Lyon on 9 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) individual pensioners and (b) pensioner households are exempt partially or wholly from council tax payments; what the total cost is of these exemptions, and what the total cost to it would be of making all pensioners wholly exempt from paying council tax.
Answer
Information on the numbers ofpensioners and pensioner households who are exempt from council tax in Scotland is notheld centrally. Information on the estimated numbers of pensioner household-equivalentunits receiving council tax benefit in Scotland and the average weekly benefit payments paid to theseunits is published annually by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Figuresfor May 2004 are available from the DWP statistics website at
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbctb.asp.Exempting all pensioners fromany liability to pay council tax would raise a number of definitional issues andwould also have complex and significant national and local financial implications.Any estimate provided would therefore be speculativeand could be misleading.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what information it is able to provide on any fingerprint experts working in any of the fingerprint bureaux outside of the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) who have disagreed with any of the SCRO experts fingerprint identifications in the last 10 years, on what the level of disagreement was and on what measures were taken to resolve these disagreements.
Answer
The only known incidents concernthe case of Shirley McKie when staff at Aberdeen and Edinburgh subsequently formed an opinion which differed from theoriginal identification made by their colleagues in Glasgow.
During the past 10 years, underthe guidance and instruction of the Lord Advocate, more than 2,000 identificationsmade by experts in Glasgow were verified by experts from the Metropolitan PoliceService and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
In addition, fingerprint experts now have annual competency tests andare subject to a Continuous Professional Development Programme. The processes usedare subject to internal quality assurance and to external independent audit underthe ISO 9001:2000 Certificate to which the Scottish Fingerprint Service is accredited.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 November 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 November 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what information it is able to provide on whether there have been any disagreements between experts from Aberdeen fingerprint bureau and experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office in Glasgow on what constitutes fingerprint identification and, if there there have been any such disagreements, whether these disagreements have been resolved and, if so, how they were resolved and, if they have not been resolved, what steps it is taking to ensure that (a) miscarriages of justice do not occur and (b) all fingerprint identifications from the Scottish Fingerprint Service given in Scottish courts will be accompanied by information on the different approaches to the scientific basis of fingerprint identification which currently exist within the Scottish Fingerprint Service.
Answer
Experts in the Aberdeen officeof the Scottish Fingerprint Service (SFS) recently disagreed with colleagues inthe Glasgow office about the identification made in 1997 of a markin the case of Shirley McKie.
There is no difference of opinionin the SFS about the basis for identification. All SFS experts subscribe to theuniversally accepted definition that an identification is made when the fingerprintexpert is personally satisfied that the order, relationship and unique propertiesof the features within any two prints are in agreement with no features in disagreementwhich cannot be explained. When a match is made the comparison is subject to separateverification by two further fingerprint officers.
The processes used are subjectto internal quality assurance and to external independent audit under the ISO 9001:2000Certificate to which the SFS is accredited.
