Chamber and committees

Health boards and NHS Trusts have to plan and deliver services which meet the needs of their local population within the resources allocated to them and taking account of national and local priorities. A patient may require an ultrasound examination or barium x-ray for various clinical reasons, and the priority attached to each case is a matter for the clinical judgement of the doctor concerned. The impact on patient outcomes from differing waiting times for these investigative/diagnostic procedures would depend on the nature of the patient's condition at the time of referral.The Scottish Executive is committed to improving waiting times, addressing all stages of a patient's care pathway through the Health Service, and to creating greater equity of access across the country. As I announced in Parliament on 16 December, we will be working with the NHS across Scotland over the coming months to establish national maximum waiting times, to be met by March 2000, in the three national clinical priorities of heart disease, cancer and mental illness.

I refer the Member to the answer S1W-3560.

I refer the Member to the answer S1W-3560.

North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust has taken a number of steps to reduce waiting times for oncology patients both for diagnostic and therapeutic services, including extending its working week by 20 hours and the appointment of an extra half-time consultant radiologist. Further information is available on request from the Trust.The Scottish Executive is committed to improving waiting times, addressing all stages of each patient's care. Over the coming months we will be working with the NHS across Scotland to establish national maximum waiting times to be met by March 2001 in the three national priorities of heart disease, cancer and mental illness.

Self-help groups such as those involved with Neighbourhood Watch and crime prevention/community safety panels operate entirely on a voluntary basis, supported by local police forces. The Scottish Executive provides support in the form of publicity materials and in the case of panels has, since 1997, awarded £54,000 of funding for local crime prevention initiatives. I also announced last August the introduction of new challenge funding of £1.5 million for projects from community safety partnerships to run in tandem with the CCTV Challenge Competition which receives similar funding.

The Scottish Executive and the UK Government will shortly be publishing a road safety strategy for the period to 2010. The strategy will underpin new and challenging targets for casualty reductions which will build on the progress already made. Fatal and serious casualties in Scotland have halved since the early 1980s.

The Scottish Executive will continue to provide funds to the Scottish Road Safety Campaign for the development of road safety education and publicity materials, including the current "Foolsspeed" campaign. It will also continue to fund the operation of the Children's Traffic Club in Scotland, to ensure that road safety education is available free to all three- and four-year-old children in Scotland.The Scottish Executive reviews annually accidents on trunk roads and investigates clusters of accidents at particular locations and routes with high accident rates. This enables necessary remedial measures to be carried out.

The information requested is set out in the table below. Some 20% of the overall total of CABGs are undertaken on an urgent or immediate basis and are not included in the figures in the table.Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts / Other Cardiac Surgery (principal) operations;Waiting List admissions showing number and average wait by Health Board of residence for year ended 30 September 1999¹

	Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts3 (OPCS4 K40-44)			Other Cardiac Surgery4 (K25-35)
Area of Residence2	wait (days)			wait (days)
	no	mean	median	no	mean	median
Scotland	1,941	163	138	508	130	90
Argyll and Clyde	154	147	140	44	104	82
Ayr & Arran	110	83	91	34	79	63
Borders	30	202	187	10	148	153
Dumfries & Galloway	54	248	292	15	101	87
Fife	133	141	97	26	180	154
Forth Valley	78	157	115	37	119	75
Grampian	234	154	100	40	170	101
Greater Glasgow	429	168	150	103	121	76
Highland	63	170	142	23	144	105
Lanark	277	194	215	56	125	76
Lothian	183	143	106	77	143	106
Orkney	2	88	89	2	12	13
Shetland	6	272	324	1	38	38
Tayside	182	173	156	38	159	161
Western Isles	6	158	88	2	26	27

Source: SMR01, ISD ScotlandNotes:1. Provisional data.2. Excludes non-Scottish residents and patients whose area of residence is unknown.3. Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts (CABG) use OPCS4 codes K40-K44 inclusive. 4. Other Cardiac Surgery is defined as the OPCS4 codes K25-K35 inclusive.

The deployment of police officers to specific duties is an operational matter for Chief Constables. The police are committed to the principles of the Best Value approach as a means of increasing the efficiency of forces and improving the already high standards achieved for response times.

I announced the revised aggregate figures for this year's local government finance settlement and the general approach I would be taking to the distribution in my statement to Parliament on 8 December. The proposals for individual allocations which I announced in my reply to a Written Parliamentary Question (S1W-3294) on 15 December 1999 are still the subject of consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The Parliament will have the opportunity to consider the final allocations when the Local Government Finance Order 2000 is laid later this month.

The distribution of Grant-Aided Expenditure, which feeds into the distribution of Aggregate External Finance, is based on a formula assessment of councils' relative expenditure needs agreed with CoSLA. Glasgow City Council's below average increase in GAE this year was largely due to the continuing phasing in of revised Social Work GAE indicators and the normal redistributive effects on a number of other service assessments within the agreed formula approach.