Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the statement I made to Parliament on transport spending on 28 September 2000.

The expenditure incurred in each of the last three years and in each of the following three years is:

1997-98	£183,391
1998-99	£228,720
1999-2000	£224,771
2000-01	£327,151
2001-02	£343,992
2002-03	£304,792

Although there were shortages of generic drugs during 1999-2000, contingency arrangements already in place ensured both that patients continued to receive their medicines and that community pharmacists were appropriately reimbursed. Scottish Executive Health Department officials are in regular contact with the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council to ensure that these arrangements continue to achieve these twin objectives in cases of shortages.

I also support the steps taken by the Department of Health to commission a fundamental review of the way the generics market serves the needs of Primary Care. I will be looking carefully at the department's conclusions and the implications for Scotland.

The table below gives the total number of prescription items dispensed, and the percentages of proprietary and generic products.¹

Information on dispensing details for branded products still on patent, and branded products for which a generic equivalent existed, is not recorded centrally and is not available in the form requested.

Prescription Items Dispensed in Scotland - 1995-96 to 1999-2000

	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000
Total items dispensed	53,263,578	54,985,962	57,192,917	58,797,506	60,908,779
% dispensed as generic	41.72%	44.34%	47.01%	48.69%	49.49%
% dispensed as proprietary	58.28%	55.66%	52.99%	51.31%	50.51%

Notes:

1. Excludes appliances, dressings, oxygen and unallocated items, which cannot be defined as generic or proprietary.

A number of initiatives which use electronic data interchange are underway. An important initiative is being taken forward as "Electronic Clinical Communications Implementation" (ECCI). This programme will establish widespread electronic clinical communications between primary and secondary care over a three-year programme. These communications include:

• widespread clinical email including seeking consultant's opinion;
• co-ordinated referral information;
• electronic booking - protocol based where appropriate;
• test ordering and results receiving;
• discharge letters and summaries and clinic letters; and
• information in support of shared care.

Other national projects being led by Common Services Agency include GP practices submitting patient registration data electronically to Practitioner Services Division (PSD), with over 50 practices now live. Similar electronic links to PSD are currently in planning covering payments to dentists. A project to provide community pharmacists with access to NHSnet is underway; this would be an important step towards enabling transmission of prescriptions from GP Practices to community pharmacists.

Scottish Healthcare Supplies (SHS), a Division of the Common Services Agency with responsibility for arranging central contracts for the NHS in Scotland, is committed to ensuring that any goods, equipment or services placed on contract are safe, of optimal quality and represent good value for money. SHS has negotiated a wide range of national contracts for common usage, and these have generated substantial savings for the NHS in Scotland. The Scottish Executive continues to work to seek further improvements in this area.

The Practitioner Services Division of the Common Services Agency went live in October 2000 with a new data capture, validation and pricing system for processing pharmacists' claims for payment in respect of dispensed prescriptions. Software for processing ophthalmic claims is being developed and that system is expected to go live early next year.

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) already operates an appointment system at its five main donor centres. SNBTS is committed to improving this system and will assess donor feedback with a view to offering the facility more widely if demand is shown to exist. However, an appointment system does not appeal to all donors, and SNBTS is also committed to retaining its "walk in" facility.

This information is not held centrally. NHS in Scotland employers are required to be working towards attaining the "Positive about Disability Two Ticks Symbol" and ensuring the health service is working towards the guidelines in the Employment Service Code of Good Practice on the Employment of Disabled People. The Symbol requires employers to:

• interview all applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and consider them on their merits;
• ask disabled employees at least once a year what the employer can do to make sure disabled employees can develop and use their abilities at work;
• make every effort when an employee become disabled to make sure the employee remains in employment;
• take action to ensure that key employees develop an awareness of disability needed to make the employers commitments work;

each year employers are required to review their commitments and achievements, plan ways to improve on them and let all employees know about progress and future plans.

The information is set out in the table below.¹ The general index of retail prices has been used to deflate the average gross ingredient cost into real terms, using 1995-96 as a baseline.

Average Gross Ingredient Cost of General and Proprietary Items Dispensed 1995-96 to 1999-2000

	Generic		Proprietary
Financial Year	Average cost per item £	Total cost of all items dispensed £	Average cost per item £	Total cost of all items dispensed £
1995-96	1.80	39,320,610	12.72	388,274,138
1996-97	2.01	48,201,533	13.54	407,937,513
1997-98	2.72	71,981,179	13.89	414,375,875
1998-99	2.63	74,064,879	14.41	427,385,527
1999-2000	3.66	105,354,734	15.07	455,592,429

Notes:

1. Excludes appliances, dressings, oxygen and unallocated items, which cannot be defined as generic or proprietary.