Questions and answers

Question reference: S4O-04071

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to increase the training, recruitment and retention of mental health officers across child and adolescent mental health services.

Question reference: S4W-24415

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria the Scottish Medicines Consortium uses to prioritise its review of medicines and whether it plans to publish the criteria and the weightings applied.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) aims to provide advice on new medicines and new indications to health boards as soon as is practical after a new medicine becomes available for use.

In the event of receipt of a high number of submissions in a particular month, scheduling for review is prioritised by taking into account factors such as the launch date of the medicine, whether the submission is for a new medicine not already available in NHS Scotland, the availability of treatment alternatives, and the level of service need. For example, a submission for a medicine to treat a condition where no other treatment is available would be prioritised over one for a new indication for an established medicine. No weighting is applied.

At the January 2015 meeting of the SMC pharmaceutical industry User Group Forum, SMC undertook to include information on its website about the factors taken into consideration when scheduling medicines for assessment.

Question reference: S4W-24416

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how often the Scottish Medicines Consortium has had to defer a review of a medicine in the last three years due to its workload and whether it has made an assessment of whether its current level of resourcing is sufficient.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) aims to provide advice on new medicines and new indications to health boards as soon as is practical after a new medicine becomes available for use.

In the event of receipt of a high number of submissions in a particular month, scheduling for review is prioritised by taking into account factors such as the launch date of the medicine, whether the submission is for a new medicine not already available in NHS Scotland, the availability of treatment alternatives, and the level of service need. For example, a submission for a medicine to treat a condition where no other treatment is available would be prioritised over one for a new indication for an established medicine.

SMC has seen a significant increase in resources to support implementation of the recommendations arising from reviews on access to new medicines and recruitment and training is on course.

Question reference: S4W-24150

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the average (a) total spend per head and (b) spend per head on mental health has been in each NHS board in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S4W-24148

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of health spend was on mental health in each of the last five years.

The proportion of NHS expenditure on mental health over the last five years is shown in the following table.

In 2009-10 NHS Scotland’s expenditure on mental health was £890.5 million, and this rose by £6.1 million in 2013-14 to £896.7 million, an increase of 0.69%.

Financial Year	Percentage of NHS expenditure related to mental health
2009-10	12.77%
2010-11	12.44%
2011-12	12.18%
2012-13	12.18%
2013-14	11.82%

An explanation of how mental health expenditure is recorded is given below.

Mental health expenditure is recorded in the Costs Book (Report R340) within hospital, community and resource transfer data for the 14 geographic health boards and the special board the State Hospital only.

Total expenditure is recorded in the Costs Book (Report R300) and has been restricted to hospital, community and resource transfer data to give a more accurate comparison against mental health expenditure.

Total expenditure is also restricted here to the 14 geographic health boards, the State Hospital and the Golden Jubilee National Hospital for the same reason. Primary care expenditure is not included in the comparison; this will include expenditure on primary mental health services but the spend is not disaggregated in this way.

Question reference: S4W-24149

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 3 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of spend on mental health conditions compared to spend on (a) obesity- and (b) smoking-related conditions.

Funds are allocated to each geographical NHS health board and it is the responsibility of each board to plan and provide services which meet the needs of their population, in line with Scottish Government policy.

In 2010-11 NHS Scotland’s expenditure on mental health was £867.1 million, and this increased by £29.6 million to 2013-14 (£896.7 million) and accounts for 11.82% of NHS expenditure.

During the financial year 2014-15, direct government funding of prevention programmes was £3.769 million which included child and adult healthy weight programmes and Football Fans in Training.

Annual costs to Scotland's health service associated with tobacco-related illness are estimated to exceed £300 million and may be higher than £500 million each year.

Question reference: S4O-03977

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support and develop the third sector across the South Scotland region.

Question reference: S4W-24083

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 19 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 28 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of NHS Fife’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) Intensive Therapy Service, and what recent discussions it has had with the other NHS boards about this service.

Clinical activity and outcome data is collated on a four monthly basis as part of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) South East Tier 4 Consortium. This information is collated in the context of the three regional intensive therapy services and inpatient service that makes up the South East Tier 4 Consortium. The information is then presented to and escalated by the South East and Tayside regional planning group to the Scottish Government.

We have recently developed a data set with partners which NHS National Services Scotland (Information Services Division Scotland) will be starting to collect data in 2015 to track progress in developing intensive community treatment teams and other tier 4 CAMHS activity and how the adolescent inpatient units are working. This should provide us with a comprehensive picture of how services are functioning nationally. This data is currently only available at a regional level used for managing and planning services locally.

Question reference: S4W-24085

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 19 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 27 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when ministers last met the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland; who attended, and what future meetings are planned.

Question reference: S4W-23994

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 26 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made by the quality and cost-effectiveness review of stoma care services.

All fourteen territorial NHS boards across Scotland are actively participating in the quality and cost-effectiveness review, which focuses on the specifications for the stoma appliances service in the community. The review is being led from within the NHS on behalf of the Scottish Government to gauge whether the existing arrangements, first introduced in 2007 and updated in 2011, remain fit for purpose and cost effective.

Views are currently being canvassed from all interested parties, including patients, NHS staff working in stoma care services, dispensing appliance contractors, manufacturers and community pharmacies. The results will be considered in due course on how arrangements for provision of stoma appliances in the community should develop.

Chamber and committees