Chamber and committees

There is no specific requirement. However, the Scottish Executive has set an overall target to recycle or compost 25% of waste collected by Scottish local authorities, which will include waste from many schools by 2006. This will be achieved through the implementation of the Area Waste Plans. The Executive plans to take powers to set mandatory recycling and other waste management targets under the Local Government Bill.

The Scottish Executive is an Institutional Partner of the International Eco-Schools Programme. The Eco-Schools Programme is a European environmental award programme which aims to promote environmental awareness in schools and provide pupils with a programme for decision making regarding the environmental management of their schools. The number/percentage of schools within a local authority participating in the award has been included as a performance measure under National Priority Four: Values and Citizenship. Further information can be found on the Eco-Schools website, http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/.

Responsibility for the overall provision of NHS dental services in an area rests with the relevant NHS board or Primary Care NHS Trust. Tayside Primary Care NHS trust recently received approval to appoint a joint CDS/GDS dentist, i.e. a community dental officer who provides general dental services for part of his/her time, based in Arbroath. If the trust considers that a further gap in provision exists it can apply for approval to appoint a salaried dentist.

I have been advised that the Food Standards Agency will be pressing in Europe for nutrition labelling to be made compulsory on all packaged foods, this will include a declaration of salt content. Current European rules require information about the level of sodium (rather than salt) in a food to be given on food labels only when certain claims, such as "low salt", have been made. European discussions are due to begin next year.

The community thrombolysis service in Angus covers the area of North Angus from north of Forfar, Brechin and Montrose.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29008. All answers to written PQs are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

There is an active audit study in place looking at all call outs of the service and outcomes of patients receiving thrombolysis.

Paramedic-led thrombolysis is not only provided by the rapid/cardiac response unit, which covers the whole of the Angus area, but also by frontline paramedics based at Montrose and Brechin ambulance stations, who cover their respective areas.During the period 1 June 2002 to 31 August 2002, a total of 123 patients suffering from chest pains were attended to by the Ambulance Service in Angus. 47 were attended to by an accident and emergency ambulance and received thrombolytic treatment from a paramedic. The average response time for these cases was 7.9 minutes. The remaining 76 patients were attended to by the cardiac response unit whose average response time was 9.3 minutes.

Accident and emergency at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI) say that one patient who is domiciled near to Aberdeen but had a heart attack while in Montrose was admitted to ARI at the discretion of Scottish Ambulance Service.

The 30-day survival rate for patients resident in the Angus council area who were admitted directly to the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) in Ninewells Hospital, Dundee is presented in the following table.These figures illustrate the latest figures held by ISD. At this point in time, more recent figures are not held centrally.April 2000 to March 2001

Angus Council Area	Number of patients	58
	Number of patients who survived at 30 days	49
	Survival rate (%)	84.5%