Chamber and committees

The provision of these servicesis the responsibility of each NHS board and local authority from the resources providedover the three year spending review period.

The Scottish Government is providingfunding of £1 million each year in 2007-08 and 2008-09 through the National Strategyfor Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse to help address the needs of adultsurvivors of childhood sexual abuse. £1.7 million of this has been allocated to25 statutory and voluntary organisations to develop a wide range of services forsurvivors, including preventative work, support and counselling for male survivorsand homeless young women. Further details can be found at www.survivorscotland.org.uk.

The overarching aim of the strategyis to increase knowledge of issues faced by survivors and to improve informationand access to appropriate health and social care services. It is hoped that increasedawareness can lead to earlier intervention resulting in a lesser burden on primaryand mental health services.

Service providers are alreadyconsidering and implementing a number of the recommendations of the independentWheelchair and Seating Services Review including:

the introduction of satelliteclinics in the West of Scotland and in Tayside (recommendation 4);

the introduction of self-referralby all five wheelchair and seating centres, to enable users to have their equipmentrequirements reviewed  (recommendation 8);

the introduction of patient informationthat sets out the purpose of assessment, how to get equipment maintenance, and howto report any problems by NHS Lothian, Adult Service (recommendation 13), and

the introduction of planned preventativemaintenance in NHS Highland and in the West of Scotland for powered chairs (recommendation32).

I expect the service providersto continue to consider and implement recommendations as far as possible ahead of the action plan.

NHS Wheelchair and Seating servicesprovide wheelchairs to those with impaired mobility arising from clinical conditions.However, wheelchair provision also includes input and interventions from a broadspectrum of agencies such as social care, housing and education services in additionto health. To successfully address the issues raised by the review, engagement withand agreement from all agencies in taking forward proposed actions is essential.The patient focussed approachis central to the development of redesigned services to address the recommendationsfrom the review and continue the elimination of excess waits. Some of the improvementsalready underway are referred to in the answer to question S3W-7724 on 16 January 2008. Allanswers 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/wa.search.

The project team will assessthe recommendations from the review as part of the development of an action planand ensure that changes proposed are evidence based and cost effective to NHS Scotlandand its partners.

Producing a fully costed, robustand realistic action plan that will underpin the provision of modern and sustainableNHS wheelchair and seating services in Scotland will require until December 2008. This time period includes12 weeks for public consultation on the draft action plan prior to finalisation.

The Wheelchair and Seating ServicesProject Board meets quarterly. The chair can also call extraordinary meetings atany time if deemed necessary.

The project manager was appointedwith effect from 22 October 2007 on a full-time basis for an initial period of three years.

The current membership of theWheelchair and Seating Services Project Board (WSSPB) is as follows:

Richard Carey: Chief Executive - NHS Grampian (ProjectBoard Chair)

Geoff Bardsley: Consultant ClinicalScientist – Head of Service, Tayside Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Technology (TORT)Centre

Ruth Cleland: Head of Internal Communications - NHS Highland

John Colvin: Head of Service- West of Scotland Mobility and Rehabilitation Centre (WESTMARC)

Janet Garcia: Wheelchair andSeating Services Project Manager - Scottish Government Healthcare Policy and StrategyDirectorate

Anne Harkness: Director of Rehabilitationand Assessment - NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Liz Rowlett: Policy, Informationand Parliamentary Officer - Scottish Disability Equality Forum and Carer Representative

Sylvia Shearer: Head of Branch,Blood and Rehabilitation Equipment - Scottish Government Healthcare Policy and StrategyDirectorate

Ron Skinner: Service User Representative

Roseanne Urquhart: Head of HealthcareStrategy - NHS Highland

Chair, Rehabilitation TechnologyServices Advisory Group.

At the second meeting of theWSSPB on 19 November 2007, it was agreed that the board should also include a localauthority representative. Officials have invited COSLA to nominate a representative.

The project board may also inviteexperts to inform the board on an ad hoc basis as it considers appropriate.

The provision of services tomeet the housing needs of survivors of sexual abuse is the responsibility of localgovernment to be drawn from the local government settlement of £34.7 billion overthree years.

A combined enforcementand publicity campaign is launched on 14 January. The campaign is targeted aroundthe four main cities and will highlight the consequences of being convicted underthe new legislation. This advertising campaign will also be supported by a fullPR campaign. The budget for this campaign is £105,000.

Scottish Governmentofficials are in regular contact with representatives of Strathclyde, Lothian andBorders, Tayside and Grampian Police regarding the implementation of the act. Convictionsunder the act will be monitored in the usual way, through the collection of statisticson criminal offences.

The provision of supportto help individuals to leave prostitution is the responsibility of individual localauthorities. The Scottish Government last year published guidance for local authoritiesand their community planning partners to assist them in developing comprehensivelocal strategies to address street prostitution in their area. The guidance highlightedthe importance of providing support and assistance to enable individuals to leaveprostitution.

The Scottish Governmentwill be providing local government in Scotland with recordlevels of funding over the period covered by the spending review 2008-11. The vastmajority of the funding will be provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibilityof each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to iton the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutoryobligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Figures for the number of peoplein fuel poverty are estimated from the results of the Scottish House Condition Survey.Figures for the individual years requested are unavailable, except for 2002. Surveysafter 2002 were conducted on an annual but not calendar year basis for 2003-04,2004-05 and 2005-06. From 2007 the survey moved to a calendar year basis. Figuresfor 2007 will be available in late 2008. The figures which are available are:

Year	People in Fuel Poverty	95% Confidence Interval
2002	508,000	+/- 28,000
2003-04	614,000	+/- 71,000
2004-05	743,000	+/- 77,000
2005-06	959,000	+/- 83,000

 

Because the figures are estimates,the 95% confidence interval is also shown.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-7603 on 8 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.