Chamber and committees

Organising appointments and scheduling admissions to hospital is an operational matter for NHS boards. It has always been common practice to slightly overbook outpatient clinics to take account of the small number of patients who may not turn up on the day. This ensures that the most efficient use of clinical resources and ensure that all patients are seen as swiftly as possible.

As independent contractors, GP practice partners are responsible for designing their own practice appointment systems to meet their service obligations. They are also responsible for ensuring that their reception staff are fully trained in prioritising appointment requests and making such bookings appropriately in accordance with practice procedures.

Under local arrangements for interpreting services NHS boards will agree a minimum fee to be paid to the interpreter in the event that the patient does not attend.

Access to orphan medicines has been a key focus of the Health and Sport Committee and the New Medicines Review. The Scottish Government will carefully consider any recommendations for improvement to the existing arrangements from the New Medicines Review and the Health and Sport Committee.

In the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) assessment process, the benefits of treatment (measured in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) will have been estimated from all patients in the clinical trial(s). These patients often cover a wide age range. When the single “cost per QALY” that informs the decision is arrived at, this will have been summed up to reflect the average across patients of all ages and thus is not specific to only one age group. This approach mitigates against any discrimination on the basis of age.

The cost per QALY is a factor in SMC decision making but the Committee will also consider the views of clinical experts and patient interest groups and SMC modifiers can be applied if appropriate.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is a rare lung condition the cause of which is of unknown. It can be difficult to diagnose as the main symptoms are similar to other lung conditions. Diagnosis will usually be made by a respiratory specialist and may involve a number of tests including chest x-ray, CT scan and in some cases lung biopsy.

Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks have been established in all NHS health boards across Scotland, supported by pump priming funding from the Scottish Government. Our National Advisory Group (NAG) for Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks is working to develop a co-ordinated approach to improving respiratory services across Scotland and provides the opportunity for local Managed Clinical Networks, patient representatives and stakeholders to discuss issues, identify solutions and share best practice.

As part of the green travel plan for the new South Glasgow Hospitals, £40 million has been invested in the Fastlink bus service.

The travel plan for the new South Glasgow Hospitals will be implemented when the hospitals are operational in 2015.

In the meantime, extensive travel planning for the hospitals is on-going including construction of on-site transport infrastructure, for example, a new dedicated road for public transport.

The vast majority of GP practices operate as independent contractors within the NHS. Practices are contracted by health boards to provide NHS services to registered patients under the terms and conditions of a nationally negotiated General Medical Services contract.

The contract regulations do specify a number of prescribed medical certificates which GPs are required to provide free under the NHS. However not all documentation, certificates and reports requested by patients are covered by the NHS and when GPs agree to provide services outwith their NHS contractual terms and conditions, they are entitled to charge a professional fee as remuneration for doing so.

The British Medical Association (BMA) does not direct doctors on the level of professional fees but it does provide general guidance. Where a patient requests a report or certificate falling outside the work of the doctor’s NHS contract the BMA advises that the fee set should be reasonable, transparent and justifiable. Patients should also be forewarned of the fee level before the service is agreed and provided.

Information on the location of offences is not held in The Scottish Government court proceedings database, however, I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-11677 on 10 January 2013 which includes data on section 5(1) of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 relating to assaulting or impeding health workers in hospital premises.

All answers 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Funding local data sharing partnerships contributed towards the improvement of local information sharing protocols, procedures and guidance originally provided by the eCare programme. Adapting local IT systems, improved communications and increased willingness to share information to achieve a better outcome for clients.