Chamber and committees

NHS trusts are now more aware of their responsibilities when employing bank and agency nurses and have procedures in place to ensure that they are employed only when appropriate. The increased use of bank and agency nurses is indicative of the pressures in the system for nurse employment, for example, the working time directive and the creation of many new nursing/midwifery posts.

In the one year period ending 31 March 2002, 818.3 (WTE) agency nurses were employed by NHS organisations. The cost to each NHS trust of employing such nurses is listed as follows. Information on bank nursing and midwifery staff will be available on SKIPPER in November 2002.Cost of Using Agency Nursing Staff by Organisation, for the One Year Period Ending 31 March 2002.

Trust	Unqualified (£)	Qualified (£)
Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	479,331	1,078,099
Lomond and Argyll Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Renfrewshire and Inverclyde Primary Care NHS Trust	631,489	*
Ayrshire and Arran Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	*	*
Ayrshire and Arran Primary Care NHS Trust	0	0
Borders Acute Hospital NHS Trust	*	*
Borders Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Dumfries and Galloway Acute and Maternity Hospitals NHS Trust	0	*
Dumfries and Galloway Primary Care NHS Trust	0	0
Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	310,131	1,027,832
Fife Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Forth Valley Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	*	*
Forth Valley Primary Care NHS Trust	359,512	*
Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust	605,531	,724,798
Grampian Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust	720,000	2,880,000
South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust	1,032,312	1,430,795
Yorkhill NHS Trust	*	*
Greater Glasgow Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Highland Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	*	*
Highland Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Lanarkshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	366,238	1,135,562
Lanarkshire Primary Care NHS Trust	*	*
Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust	1,434,631	3,341,083
West Lothian Health care NHS Trust	*	*
Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust	0	-
Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust	0	2,401,805
Tayside Primary Care NHS Trust	-	0
Orkney Health Board	0	-
Shetland Health Board	0	*
Western Isles Health Board	0	0,
Common Services Agency	0	*
Total	6,607,618	16,425,652

Notes:*Costs relating to less than 10 whole-time equivalent have been omitted to avoid the possibility of an individual's earnings being identified.-Information not available.

The activity on the Scottish Executive website is measured in page impressions which is a universally recognised measure of website activity, sometimes referred to as website hits.The Scottish Executive website had an average of 1 million page impressions per month in 2000, rising to 2.25 million in 2001 and to 2.91 million in the period from January to August 2002. We do not have comparable information for 1999. We can only provide monthly information from January 2001 as we do not retain detailed log files prior to that date. The monthly figures since January 2001 are set out in the table.

2001		2002
January	1,659,586	January	3,604,901
February	1,787,211	February	2,881,753
March	2,392,339	March	2,922,866
April	1,994,269	April	3,041,109
May	1,911,874	May	3,066,677
Jun	1,841,343	Jun	2,409,684
Jul	2,072,431	Jul	2,677,849
Aug	2,072,239	Aug	2,669,064
Sep	2,478,842
Oct	2,565,028
Nov	3,365,779
Dec	2,842,830
2001 Monthly Average: 2,248,585		2002 Monthly Average: 2,909,237

The Scottish Executive website is undergoing a programme of continuous development under the direction of the web editorial board. This has resulted in a significant increase in activity on the website. The number of page impressions per month averaged 1 million in 2000, rising to 2.25 million in 2001 and to 2.91 million in the period from January to August 2002. The development programme is closely integrated with the work on building and maintaining the website. Given that the work falls to the same team, we do not separate the costs of development from the on-going costs. The Scottish Executive has spent £580,000 on building, maintaining and developing its website since May 1999. This figure is broken down in the table.

Staff salaries	£277,000
Design services	£111,000
Web hosting	£110,000
Equipment and software	£30,000
Contractor costs	£19,000
Search engine optimisation and traffic analysis	£18,000
User needs survey	£15,000
Total	£580,000

Note:These figures are exclusive of VAT.

Information on the 12 local authorities which had plastics collections in 2001 is available in the RECOUP report, Providing a comprehensive overview of plastic bottle recycling in the UK - 2002. The report is available on RECOUP's website, http://www.recoup.org/.In addition, a pilot plastic bottle recycling service was recently introduced in Edinburgh City Council. This provides recycling banks at 12 sites around the city, with the aim of gathering 50 tonnes of plastic over the next year.

Following closure of the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at Stracathro the nine-bedded CCU in Ninewells was supplemented by the addition of a six-bedded Cardiac Step Down Unit (CSDU). The CSDU allows appropriate patients to "step down" in a staged process from the CCU to a cardiology ward. Wards 1 and 2 at Ninewells have also been designated as predominantly cardiology wards.

The average length of stay in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at Ninewells over the last five years was as follows :

2001-02	2.4 days
2000-01	2.3 days
1999-2000	2.4 days
1998-99	2.3 days
1997-98	2.3 days

In the period April to August 2002 the average length of stay in the nine-bedded CCU at Ninewells has reduced to 1.9 days as appropriate patients are now "stepped down" to a six-bedded Cardiac Step Down Unit and ultimately to a cardiology ward in carefully managed steps.

There are nine beds in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at Ninewells. This has been the bed complement over the last five years. Following closure of the CCU at Stracathro the service at Ninewells has been supplemented by the introduction of a five-bedded Cardiac Step Down Unit.

The clot-busting drug used is tenectaplase.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29002 on 19 September 2002. 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.