Chamber and committees

The following table includes all accidents on the Scottish rail network statutorily reported under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995. They include workforce accidents, accidents involving the general public and accidents arising from trespass and vandalism such as missiles through cab windows, fires and running into obstructions, etc. The injury statistics also include all workforce and general public injuries occurring on railway premises, including those arising from trespass and attempted suicides.

	1997-88	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
All Accidents	121	156	139	151	116	83	50	49	41	46	53	47
All Injuries	440	329	339	385	375	326	303	293	316	248	274	210
All Fatalities	19	19	25	27	20	17	27	19	21	28	21	21
Fatalities Excluding Trespassers and Suicides	0	0	0	2	5	2	1	1	3	1	4	1

Source: Scottish Transport Statistics.

Note: Statistics broken down on a line by line basis are not readily available.

Intervention 9 of the Scottish Government''s Strategic Transport Projects Review (http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/stpr) has recommended using Intelligent Transport Systems on the most congested parts of the road network to enhance capacity and operations. This can include hard shoulder running.

We have completed a technical feasibility study for a pilot project for bus hard shoulder running on an 8km stretch of the northbound M77 between J4 and J1 in the morning peak period.

Subject to funding pressures, we shall take forward the project to a detailed design phase over the coming months.

We are also developing route strategies for the Forth Replacement Crossing and its approaches, the M8 and A720, and the remaining sections of the M74 and M80 (towards Glasgow). Hard shoulder running may also be appropriate at these locations.

Information made available to Transport Scotland indicates that the following valid National Entitlement Cards were in circulation giving access to Scotland-wide Free Bus Travel for Older and Disabled People as of the specific dates. This information was obtained from the Local Authority Card Management System.

NECs Issued Allowing Access to Concessionary Travel

Category of Eligibility	23 June 2006	1 May 2007	8 April 2008	27 February 2009	10 June 2010
60+	767,555	850,890	926,726	957,852	1,003,065
Disabled	48,855	55,749	59,366	55,737	172,787*
Disabled + Companion	66,306	80,082	88,255	93,005
Visually Impaired	6,457	5,257	5,179	4,980
Visually Impaired + Companion	9,192	9,876	11,466	11,272
Total	=SUM(ABOVE) 898,365	=SUM(ABOVE) 1,001,854	=SUM(ABOVE) 1,090,992	=SUM(ABOVE) 1,122,846	=SUM(ABOVE) 1,175,852

Note: * Due to development work being undertaken with the local authority card management system, we are currently unable to obtain more recent figures broken down by disability type.

From figures held by Transport Scotland, as at 2009-10 year end, the number of journeys made each year, and the subsequent reimbursement costs to operators are as follows.

Year	Journeys	Reimbursement
2006-07	155.7m	£153.4m
2007-08	158.7m	£163m
2008-09	156.9m	£179.7m
2009-10	151.2m	£186.8m

 

The Scottish Government has no formal role in overseeing the introduction of such schemes under the 2009 act but we have been working with COSLA, local authorities, the energy companies and some other interested parties to support implementation. As a result, we understand that 15 local authorities currently have a scheme in place, 11 have plans which are at an advanced stage and the six remaining authorities are planning to introduce schemes for the start of the 2011-12 financial year.

The Scottish Government also provided a small amount of funding to allow COSLA and the Improvement Service to commission a review of energy efficient council tax rebate schemes in Scotland. The review has been completed and a copy of the review report, which is currently being finalised, will be placed in SPICe (Bib. number 51226) when it is published.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The information requested is not available centrally.

The question cannot be answered, as patient data are not held centrally.

NHS boards generally do not provide support for self testing or self management of oral anticoagulation therapy (OAT) as recent evidence (which can be found at: http://www.nhshealthquality.org/nhsqis/6010.html) and practice suggests that the process is not as cost effective as clinic-based care. However, all requests are dealt with on an individual basis currently.

The generally held clinical view is that very few young people on OAT would be eligible for consideration for self-testing and self monitoring.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-33739 on 1 June 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Whilst information on the costs of self-testing and self-management of oral anticoagulation therapy (OAT) is not held centrally, recent evidence (which can be found at http://www.nhshealthquality.org/nhsqis/6010.html) and practice suggests that it is less cost effective than clinic based treatment.