Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that everyone who needs palliative and end of life care, can access it.

Since 2016, it has been the responsibility of Integration Authorities to commission and plan palliative and end of life care services and supports to meet the needs of their local population. This includes out of hours provision relating to palliative and end of life care for those being cared for in a hospital setting.

To support Integration Authorities in this work, the Scottish Government published an Advice Note on Palliative and End of Life Care for Integration Authorities in May 2018 as an accompaniment to the existing statutory guidance on Strategic Commissioning Plans.

This Advice Note was developed in collaboration with third sector colleagues such as Marie Curie and the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care, and made clear the importance of ensuring that there is a mixture of community and acute palliative care services and supports available to ensure people get the care they need. The Advice Note also emphasises the importance of working collaboratively with third sector organisations to ensure that local palliative and end of life care expertise is used to support better care for those with palliative care needs.

Further information on the local palliative care teams that provide expert advice to medical professionals caring for those with palliative care needs in an acute setting can be found at the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care website at: https://www.palliativecarescotland.org.uk/content/services_by_nhs_board/

There are no current plans to set up specific gaming addiction services in Scotland. Anyone who believes that 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 on 111 or from Breathing Space on 0800 83 85 87.

Police Scotland is a key partner on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce and works with a wide range of partners, including the Royal Mail, to disrupt the distribution of drugs through all routes, including the postal service.

The Scottish Government and NHS Health Boards are monitoring progress regularly on how funding to improve waiting times is being spent. We expect Health Boards to take action to ensure that the funding is delivering the improvements expected.

An oversight board, the Operational Performance Board (OPB), was established to drive delivery of the actions set out in the Plan. The OPB has a key role in maintaining a strategic oversight of the funding and activity to improve waiting times. The OPB is chaired by an ex-health Board Chief Executive and membership includes a number of NHS Board Chief Executives and Health and Social Care Directors.

The Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) has been in operation in Scottish GP practices, community pharmacies and NHS Practitioner Services Division (PSD) since 2008, and is now used as standard in all family GP practices. ETP enables the electronic generation, transmission, dispensing and processing of prescriptions by use of barcodes on the GP10 prescription form. It improves patient safety by reducing transcribing errors, modernises service delivery and increases the efficiency of the processing of prescriptions by removing the reliance on paper.

The Scottish Government’s ePharmacy Programme supports the on-going use and development of ETP and other services through the funding allocation to NHS Practitioner and Counter Fraud Services.

Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care strategy sets out our commitment to use digital information, data and technologies for improved service delivery including paperless prescribing
https://www.gov.scot/publications/achieving-excellence-pharmaceutical-care-strategy-scotland/

As set out in the answer to question S5W-24397 on 18 July 2019, the impact of the work required to complete the move to the new Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, together with the requirement for improved performance over a number of areas, has placed significant pressure on the leadership capacity of NHS Lothian. The Board has therefore been placed at Level 3 of the NHS Board Performance Escalation Framework.

The Board has been asked to prepare a formal recovery plan and a package of tailored support has been made available to them in order to develop and implement their recovery plan. A timeframe for when services move to the new hospital is being developed. Until the move can take place, safe, effective and high quality services continue to be delivered from the existing site.

The answer to question S5W-24397 on 18 July 2019 is available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/ormain.aspx

This information is not centrally held in the manner requested.

However, information on the number of staff employed by NHSScotland working in palliative care broken down by NHS Board is available and is published by NHS Information Services Division (ISD) on their website at:
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/ .

For convenience links to the information most closely related to the original question are set out below.

The number of medical staff is available quarterly from March 2014 on the medical and dental dashboard published on the ISD website at:
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-06-04/
Medical-and-Dental.asp .

The number of Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), is available annually from September 2009, and in the CNS table* published on the ISD website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Clinical_Nurse_Specialists_S2018.xls .

Information on consultant job plans including the number of programmed activities is available for September 2018 and is published in the ISD website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Consultant_Contract_S2018.xls

*It should be noted that due to data quality concerns, nine NHS Boards (NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Fife, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Highland, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Lothian, NHS Tayside and State Hospital) have indicated their data for September 2018 is not fit for release, therefore, it is omitted from published data.

ISD does not centrally hold workforce information on the number of sessions that have been held in each hospital. However, the number of staff employed by NHSScotland working in palliative care is published by NHS Board.

The number of medical staff is available quarterly from March 2014 on the medical and dental dashboard published on the ISD website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2019-06-04/Medical-and-Dental.asp .

The number of Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), is available annually from September 2009, and in the CNS table published on the ISD website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Clinical_Nurse_Specialists_S2018.xls .

Due to data quality concerns, nine NHS Boards (NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Fife, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Highland, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Lothian, NHS Tayside and State Hospital) have indicated their data for September 2018 is not fit for release, therefore, it is omitted from published data.

Information on consultant job plans including the number of programmed activities is available for September 2018 and is published in the ISD website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-12-04/Consultant_Contract_S2018.xls

This information is not centrally held.

The Scottish Government recognises the need to ensure that health professionals have the knowledge, skills and confidence to provide high quality palliative and end of life care, relevant to their role.

In our Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care, we committed to develop a new palliative and end of life care Educational Framework to help address the needs of the health and social care workforce and foster an integrated and collaborative approach to educational provision. This was published in April 2018 and can be found at: https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/newsroom/features-and-articles/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-enriching-and-improving-experience.aspx

We are working with NHS Education Scotland, whose role it is to provide support to NHS Boards by developing and delivering education and training for those who work in NHSScotland, to help embed the Framework across NHSScotland.

The average available staffed beds for the palliative medicine specialty reported for acute NHS hospitals during the period 2013-14 – 2017-18 is presented in the following table.

Table: Average available staffed beds for palliative medicine, Scotland, 2013/14 to 2017-18