Chamber and committees

Neither we within the Scottish Government, nor officials within NHS boards where car parking charging schemes are in place, have any evidence that staff are leaving posts at such hospitals to work at other NHSScotland locations where car parking charges have not been introduced.

It is clear that car parking spaces cannot be provided for everyone and we must strive to achieve an appropriate balance between the needs of patients, visitors and staff in the use of car parking spaces, especially where these are limited because of the constraint of a particular site. We shall continue to ensure that charges are only introduced where appropriate and necessary and that the level of charge is reasonable, with provisions in place for an appropriate allocation of staff car parking permits. Discussions and decisions on car parking policies will continue to be taken forward on a partnership approach to ensure that car parking schemes are applied consistently, fairly and transparently.

The following table shows the proportion of staff with car parking permits at those NHSScotland hospital sites where car parking charges have been introduced.

The criteria used in the allocation of staff car parking permits has always been a matter to be determined locally and the revised guidance issued in January supports this approach but emphasises that such criteria should only be developed and agreed in discussion on a staff partnership basis. Each board's area partnership forum or equivalent is likely to be the best forum for such discussions, drawing upon local expertise of the relevant services, HR managers and occupational health staff as appropriate. The criteria should take account of good employment practice, that car use may be essential to the delivery of services and personal circumstances which may justify the use of a car to travel to work, including ill health and disability and significant continuing domestic or carer commitments.

The revised guidance also requires that the criteria used in determining who should be granted a permit is applied consistently and transparently and that staff are provided with clear, accessible and widely available information on site-specific procedures for the allocation and issue of car parking permits and any concessions available.

Proportion Of Staff Within Parking Permits
Board	Hospital	% Staff with Permits
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	Southern General	17
	Gartnavel General	29
	Victoria Infirmary	8
	Western Infirmary	13
	Yorkhill	12
NHS Lothian	Western General	17.5
	Royal Infirmary	34
	Royal Hospital for Sick Children	5.5
	St John's	100¹
NHS Grampian	Foresterhill	20²
	Dr Gray's	n/a
NHS Tayside	Ninewells	20
NHS Highland	Raigmore	35³

 

Notes:

1. When traffic management arrangements were first introduced within West Lothian all staff applications for permits for St John's Hospital were granted including those from community staff and staff based outwith St John's but legitimately and regularly visiting the site. The practical effect of this is that considerably more staff than simply those based at St John's have permits “ the actual percentage of staff with permits equates to 138% of the St John's-based staff.

2. Refers to priority permits only “ staff who do not qualify for these permits are automatically entitled to a general permit available for use in public car parks.

3. All staff are entitled to a permit but no guarantee that a parking space will be available.

For those boards where car parking charges are currently in place, we shall be reviewing their current car parking schemes against the principles and criteria set out in the revised guidance. Accordingly, we have asked for reports from these boards by 30 June 2008 and once these reports have been considered we shall issue a full policy statement on the provision of car parking at NHSScotland facilities and our proposals for updating the existing guidance.

Guidance was issued on 29 March 2005 to the health boards and GPs that the NHS (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2004 were to be amended to prevent the use of national or premium rate telephone lines. These were considered to be an unacceptable barrier to access to a service which is otherwise provided free. The amendment came into effect on 1 July 2005.

We work closely with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and the Scottish Health Council to ensure that the NHS complaints procedure is easy to use and effective.

We have recently commissioned the Scottish Health Council to carry out a full evaluation of the first three years of operation of the revised NHS complaints procedure.

Statistical information on complaints made under the NHS Complaints Procedure, broken down by NHS board and by financial year, is published annually and can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4362.html.

Work is routinely undertaken in NHS boards across Scotland to survey patients' experience of local care and to implement learning from the NHS Complaints Procedure and other local feedback arrangements.

However, Better Together, our new national Patient Experience Programme will tap into patient experience in a more systematic way. It will:

work with patients and carers to determine what they want from the NHS

use surveys and research to collect information on patient views and experiences

build on evidence already collected through for example, our Patient Focus and Public Involvement work and from the NHS Complaints Procedure.

Better Together is central to achieving our vision of an NHS with patients truly at its centre and delivering real improvements in both the quality of local health care and patients' experience of that care.

Health Protection Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Government and in association with chlamydia testing laboratories, is exploring ways to develop existing monitoring systems so that a greater understanding of repeat testing among individuals can be achieved.

Data on chlamydia testing in NHS board areas is collected by Health Protection Scotland to answer the first population key clinical indicators. These were developed as part of the implementation of the sexual health strategy, Respect and Responsibility, the baseline report on the 2005 data was published in February 2006 and the 2006 data has just been published (February 2007). This has become an annual exercise and is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Respect and Responsibility, Scotland's national Sexual Health Strategy, allocates actions to NHS Quality Improvement Scotland and to NHS National Services Scotland's Information Services Division to set sexual health standards and to improve data collection of sexually transmitted infections.