Chamber and committees

Anyone who believes that online gaming is affecting their health, or that of a loved one, should consult their GP in the first instance. Out of hours, health advice and support can be obtained from NHS24 by calling 111, or from Breathing Space by calling 0800 83 85 87.

Of the £98.7 million EU Exit consequentials received between 2017-18 to 2019-20, we have already spent or committed £98.25 million. A full breakdown of money allocated to EU Exit preparation is contained within the Scottish Government’s overview of no deal preparations published on 8 October, with the below table taken from paragraph 46 of the plan:

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone living in Scotland with neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, is able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put the patient at the centre of their care. We have worked with the neurological community to develop Scotland’s first ever National Action Plan on Neurological Conditions, which we will publish before the end of the year.

The Scottish Government looks forward to working with Parkinson’s UK and other key stakeholders to support and improve care through the development of this plan taking account of the recommendations of this report as we do so.

Ensuring patients receive their medication on time when in hospital is a fundamental aspect of good quality care. This is set out in professional guidance, published in January 2019 by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, on 'the Administration of Medicines in Healthcare Settings'.

In addition, the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer published a strategy 'Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care' that makes reference to the use of people’s own medicines when they are inpatients, a strategy to facilitate medicine compliance in hospitals. This practice supports the medicines reconciliation process and ensures medicine changes are shared with care providers.

The Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are also investing £257 million each year to maintain, upgrade and implement core health IT systems, including the roll out of hospital electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems (HEPMA). Electronic prescribing has already been successfully implemented in four health boards across Scotland and all remaining NHS Boards are on track to roll it out within the next three to five years.

HEPMA supports both accurate prescribing and the administration of medicines to be recorded and therefore missed doses can be identified and rectified more quickly.

HEPMA’s functionality supports and enables more accurate, legible prescriptions through reduced transcription errors, reducing the risk of missing records and missed or late doses, resulting ultimately in a reduction in adverse drug events and allergic reactions.

This information is not held centrally. Under the Staff Governance Standard, health boards, as employers, must demonstrate that their staff are appropriately trained and developed.

This includes ensuring that resources, including time and funding, are appropriately allocated to meet local training and development needs, taking into account the needs of both the service and service users.

The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 also contains provision to ensure staff receive appropriate training for the work they perform.

Scotland is the only country in the UK to provide additional funding to optometrists to enable them to spend longer during an eye examination with patients with complex needs, including children who may attend a special school. Officials are preparing advice to Scottish Ministers on the commitment to commission an in-school visual assessment for all children in special schools in England.

For the construction of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, which was a capital funded project, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had a contract with Multiplex who were the main contractor. It was the responsibility of Multiplex to manage their sub-contractors, therefore NHS GG&C did not monitor the number of sub-contractors used on that project as they would have dealt exclusively with Multiplex.

Under the NPD agreement for the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, the Health Board has a single contract relationship with the Project Company. Project Company is responsible for managing the sub-contractors as per the agreed contract, therefore the supply chain is engaged at a level below the Project Agreement and is managed separately; consequently NHS Lothian do not collect information on sub-contractors.

We commissioned the Scottish Health Technologies Group to undertake an assessment on the efficacy of using Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for the treatment of people with highly active relapsing remitting Multiple Sclerosis where other highly effective drugs or forms of immunomodulatory treatment have not been successful. The Scottish Health Technologies Group recently published its findings. We will work closely with MS Society Scotland, other third sector bodies and the clinical community to consider what these findings mean for provision in Scotland, including the information that needs to be available to people about eligibility and risks.

NHS Education for Scotland`s Thriving in Medicine is a collection of online resources to support doctors, including ways to address and combat fatigue: https://www.scotlanddeanery.nhs.scot/trainee-information/thriving-in-medicine/ .

The GMC’s Promoting Excellence: standards for medical education and training sets out requirements for the management and delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training. University medical schools encompass GMC requirements which includes a requirement for medicals schools to minimise the adverse effects of fatigue and workload.

We continue to improve working practices for junior doctors to limit the impact of fatigue. This includes ensuring no more than seven days or shifts are worked in a row, banning working seven consecutive night shifts, and requiring all junior doctor rotas to contain a minimum 46-hour rest period following a run of full shift night working.

The annual iMatter questionnaire designed by staff, for staff, asks them if they feel that their manager and their employer cares about their wellbeing. This allows managers and health and social employers to monitor and take action to reduce work related stress, staff workloads and other wellbeing matters such as fatigue.

Additionally, the NHS Scotland Staff Governance Standard requires health boards to demonstrate that staff are provided with a continuously improving and safe working environment and that they are promoting the health and wellbeing of staff.

We will continue to survey all staff through iMatter in 2020.