Chamber and committees

Information on the vacancy rate of all applied psychologists being advertised within psychology services in each NHSScotland health board is provided from September 2011 to December 2015 in Table 1.

Information on vacancy rates of (b) liaison psychologists and (c) consultant psychologists in each NHSScotland health board in each of the last five years is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government has announced an additional £150 million for mental health services over the next five years. As part of this funding, £4.8 million will be awarded to Healthcare Improvement Scotland to establish a ‘Mental Health Access Improvement Support Team’ who will provide a comprehensive package of support to work in partnership with boards to improve access to mental health services.

The total number of clinical staff employed in psychology services across NHSScotland has increased by 24.5 per cent since March 2011. Any fluctuation in vacancies is linked to our efforts to increase capacity by recruiting even more staff.

Table 1: Whole time equivalent of psychologist vacancies being advertised within psychology services by NHS board as at September 2011 to December 2015.

Source NHS Education for Scotland Information Services Division (ISD) Psychology Workforce Database.

Further information on the psychology workforce is published by ISD Scotland and can be found at the following link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Psychology/.

Patients are considered to attend A&E rather than admitted to A&E. The national source of A&E information is the Information Services Division (ISD) A&E data mart. Within the A&E data mart the facility exists to record attendances at A&E due to self harm and other psychiatric conditions. However, the fields which can be used to identify self harm and other psychiatric conditions are all optional for completion by NHS boards and the level of recording is not sufficient for accurate national reporting of attendances due to self harm and other psychiatric conditions. ISD has an on-going programme of data quality assurance to improve the quality of data collected.

The national source of A&E information is the Information Services Division (ISD) A&E data mart. Within the A&E data mart the facility exists to record attendances at A&E due to self harm and other psychiatric conditions. However, the fields which can be used to identify self harm and other psychiatric conditions are all optional for completion by NHS boards and the level of recording is not sufficient for accurate national reporting of attendances due to self harm and other psychiatric conditions. ISD has an on-going programme of data quality assurance to improve the quality of data collected.

The meningococcal disease enhanced surveillance system at Health Protection Scotland (HPS) captures information on all meningococcal cases reported in Scotland. Due to the small numbers involved in some NHS boards, HPS only provides national data on meningococcal disease. The following table shows the number of meningococcal disease cases by serogroup, and also those with a clinical diagnosis from 2010 to the third quarter of 2015:

*2015 are data to quarter three only

The Scottish Government is committed to protecting youngsters against meningitis B (Men B) which is why we launched a national Men B vaccination programme last year to tackle its effects. All children who are now aged up to nine months should have been offered the vaccine.

The Scottish Government is guided on vaccination policy by the independent expert body, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). When any new vaccination programme is introduced, there has to be a date to determine eligibility – a decision based on the best independent clinical recommendation to ensure we can protect those children most at risk of Men B. The JCVI continues to monitor all available evidence in respect of recommendations, and advice can be updated if new information or evidence becomes available. In light of the recent petition regarding Men B, the Scottish Government has written to the JCVI to ask them to consider reviewing the evidence on their current advice to determine if it should be changed. We await their response. The Scottish Government will of course consider carefully any future JCVI recommendations in respect of Men B vaccination.

Meningococcal B (Men B) vaccination was introduced from 1 September 2015 for infants due to receive their primary immunisations starting at two months of age on or after 1 September 2015 (i.e. those babies born on or after 1 July 2015). The vaccine is offered alongside other routine immunisations at two and four months of age, with a booster dose at 12-13 months. A limited one-off catch-up programme was also delivered targeting infants born in May and June 2015 receiving other routine immunisations.

Table 1 shows the number of infants born from 1 May to 31 July 2015 who received the Men B vaccine by six months of age through the national programme. Information on Men B vaccine given out-with the routine childhood immunisation schedule or in a private hospital/clinic is not held centrally.

Table 1: Number of infants born 1 May to 31 July 2015 receiving Men B vaccine by six months of age by NHS Board of Residence

Source: Scottish Immunisation and Recall System 15 February 2016

Data are provisional.

1. NHS boards based on the boundaries as at 1 April 2014.

2. The figures presented relate to infants receiving one or more doses of the Men B vaccine by six months of age. Infants born in May 2015 would have been offered one dose of vaccine, infants born from June 2015 would have been offered two doses of vaccine.

The Scottish Health Protection Network’s Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Group already comprises a range of groups looking at delivery of the framework in Scotland, including our work on hepatitis C. These groups include clinical experts, public health experts, patient representatives, and third sector organisations in addition to the Scottish Government. The groups look at all of the issues relevant to elimination including prevention, diagnoses, testing and treatment. In addition, the treatment and therapies sub-group has been established by the government specifically to consider how to make best use of emerging therapies for hepatitis C, and this group is keeping under review treatment targets and the evolving treatment landscape.

Information on waiting times for hepatitis C is not collected centrally as acute hospital waiting times are collected at specialty level only and not by condition. Most patients with hepatitis C requiring hospital care will be seen within the specialty of gastroenterology and figures are published quarterly by Information Services Division Scotland. The Scottish Government also receives monthly management information at specialty level against the 12 weeks outpatient waiting time target and the 12 week inpatient and day case legal treatment time guarantee and this is closely monitored by Scottish Ministers. Also Scottish Government officials meet with individual NHS board to discuss all waiting time performance including in the specialty of gastroenterology.

Under the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework, NHS boards are set an annual treatment target for hepatitis C. During 2015-20 the aim is for at least 1,500 people per year to be initiated onto antiviral therapy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-27598 on 6 October 2015. 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.

In 2011-12, the Scottish Government wrote to NHS Highland regarding surgical and medical hospital standardised readmission rates at Belford Hospital which had significantly higher than expected levels (greater than three standard deviations from the Scottish average). The board concluded that this was due to errors in the clinical coding of patients and not the quality of care being provided (with planned admissions incorrectly recorded as readmissions).

In December 2013, the Scottish Government wrote to NHS Borders regarding surgical hospital standardised readmission rates at Borders General Hospital (greater than two standard deviations from the Scottish average on consecutive occasions for two of the four measures). The board concluded that the case reviews carried out in NHS Borders did not highlight an increase in the genuine rate of readmission, and that the apparent high levels were due to errors in the coding of certain patients.