Chamber and committees

In Scotland, 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 is not currently directly funding any research projects into the prevalence and costs of on-going medical conditions as a result of domestic abuse but would be prepared to consider suitable research applications on this subject in the future. These would need to be of a sufficiently high standard and would be subject to the usual committee and peer review.

Draft guidelines for health care professionals on responding to domestic abuse were issued in June for consultation. Respondents' comments will be analysed and the guidelines will be finalised in the light of these. Any additional resources and arrangements for monitoring implementation will be considered at that stage and will be announced when the final guidelines are published towards the end of the year.

The Scottish Executive has no plans of this kind. It is for individual Chief Constables to make local arrangements for dealing with victims of sexual assault.

At national level, available health information is not recorded in a form that would allow such cases to be accurately identified.

Prosecutors will have a pivotal role in implementing the changes being introduced by the Sexual Offences (Procedures and Evidence) Act that comes into force on 1 November 2002. The act tightens up the rules about using evidence of a rape victim's sexual history and will prohibit cross-examination of sexual offence victims by the accused. We have also just completed a major review of our investigation and prosecution of serious cases and, as a consequence, are about to embark on a significant exercise to ensure that we have the most effective working practices, supervision and training possible. This will, of course, include rape cases.

The type and extent of additional specialist training undertaken are matters for individual police surgeons, the body of police surgeons within each force, the force itself and the police authority.

The use or otherwise of colposcopy is a matter for the examining surgeon but I understand that it is not a procedure which is used on a regular basis.

The legislative provisions contained in Schedule 1 paragraphs 2(1) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 requires a local authority to forward a copy of any application for the grant or renewal of a taxi or private hire car licence to the Chief Constable. In addition, a local authority in considering such an application, can also make any other reasonable inquiries it considers necessary. As such, local authorities should be aware of the criminal convictions of applicants and will take into account any information provided by the Chief Constable in determining the application for a licence. We are not aware of any difficulties with the current legislative provisions in this regard. However, an independent task group set up by ministers to review the licensing provisions in the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, which includes a representative from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, is currently consulting on its emerging findings. The Task Group Consultation Paper makes no reference to this issue but it is open to people submit comments to the task group on any aspect of the licensing provisions about which they have concerns. The closing date for responses is 4 October 2002 and the consultation paper is on the web at:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/government/rlpc-00.asp. The task group is due to submit its report by the end of 2002.

The information requested is not held centrally.

There are not any courses specifically designed for those working in genito-urinary medicine and family planning clinics linking between sexual coercion and teenage pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. All doctors are required to undertake examinations whose standard are set by the medical royal colleges. All doctors are therefore required to have an overall level of understanding of all diseases.