Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government Complaints Handling Procedure is in line with the SPSO's Model Complaints Handling Procedure. It has been approved by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, whose role is to support best practice in complaints handling by public bodies in Scotland

This information is not currently collected by the Scottish Government.
The total number of people, broken down by age and local authority,
in receipt of telecare has been collected since 2011. See 
ttps://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/Data/Home
Care/SocialCareDataSets2017 for the 2017 breakdown. 2018's
figures will be published in the coming months.

This information is not currently collected by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government's Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Programme recognise that more people in Scotland could benefit from the use of telecare services (including community alarms) and are currently supporting the scale up in the uptake of these services.

In 2016, the TEC programme commissioned Deloitte to undertake a telecare feasibility study. It found that, among other findings, there is scope for Local Government to increase the current uptake of telecare from the current 20% (August 2017) of over 75 year olds to around 33% and highlighted the potential benefits this could bring - https://sctt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Telecare-Feasibility-Study-Report-FINAL.pdf

The Scottish Government Complaints Handling Procedure is in line with and approved by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, however, a review is currently in progress as part of a process of continuous improvement.

Excess weight is the main modifiable risk factor for type 2 diabetes and NHS Boards have a role in supporting patients to make changes to their diet and lifestyle to manage this risk.

Our Diet & Healthy Weight Delivery Plan published in July 2018 strives to make a significant impact on the prevention and remission of type 2 diabetes.

As part of this plan we have committed to invest £42 million over five years to give people with, or at risk of, type 2 diabetes support and better access to effective weight management services through the implementation of the Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Framework.

The Diet & Healthy Weight Delivery Plan can be accessed here: www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781787810556 .

The full Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, Early Detection and Early Intervention Framework can be accessed here: https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0053/00538389.pdf .

The Scottish Government does not centrally hold specific figures on cancelled operations due to lack of sterile equipment, however we do collect information on planned cancelled operations based on "capacity or non-clinical reason" by hospital. This data is a collection of:

• No beds available, general ward, ICU, HDU.
• Staff not available, staff are ill, not available due to an emergency operation taking clinical priority.
• Equipment not available, equipment dirty.
• Theatre session overran therefore patient cancelled.

Please note that this category does not provide a breakdown of each specific reason. Mr Briggs can obtain this information by sending a request to individual health boards.

The prevention of cardiovascular disease is one of the six priorities identified in the Scottish Government’s Heart Disease Improvement Plan (2014).

We know that a significant proportion of cardiovascular disease is preventable and influenced by behaviours. That is why we are taking decisive action in a number of areas to address these. One of the top priorities is encouraging physical activity as there is clear evidence to link this with the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Our Physical Activity Delivery Plan, ‘A More Active Scotland’, sets out the actions the Scottish Government and partners are taking to support and encourage people in Scotland to be more active, more often.

Being overweight and obesity can result in increased risk for cardiovascular disease, so our ambition is to halve child obesity in Scotland by 2030, and significantly reduce diet-related health inequalities. Taking a preventative approach, will contribute to reducing the likelihood of children becoming overweight or obese in young adulthood and later life.

Our new Alcohol Framework, sets out our priorities for preventing alcohol-related harm, building on existing measures to change Scotland’s relationship with alcohol, including world-leading minimum unit pricing and we are also actively progressing work to reduce smoking rates - our vision is for a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034.

The Heart Disease Improvement Plan, published in August 2014, sets out the aims and priorities for improved prevention, treatment and care of heart disease in Scotland. There are six key priorities and key actions needed to deliver improvement. There are no specific targets as the Plan is overseen by the National Advisory Committee on Heart Disease, supported by the Scottish Government and its clinical advisors using quality improvement methodology. The Scottish Health Survey however, monitors health in Scotland and is an important tool in measuring progress of the Plan. Coronary Heart Disease mortality has decreased by over 40% over last ten years which shows that our strategy for tackling heart disease is delivering real improvements for patients.

To further support the Plan, the Scottish Government has recently contracted to be part of the UK National Cardiac Audit Programme. This will allow Scottish data on performance in secondary and tertiary cardiac care to be audited and benchmarked.

The Scottish Government has a strategic partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) based in the USA. This current framework contract has been in place since 2018 and covers all public services in Scotland and relates to quality improvement work. The previous partnership was from 2013 to 2018. Prior to 2013, individual public sector organisations contracted directly with the IHI under separate arrangements, the details of which are not held centrally.

Prior to the introduction of the first framework contract, the Scottish Government paid for quality improvement support from IHI in relation to the Early Years Collaborative.

The costs incurred by the Scottish Government with IHI under this framework contract each calendar year since 2013 are as follows:

Scotland has now formally contracted to be part of the UK National Cardiac Audit Programme. This will allow Scottish data on performance in secondary and tertiary cardiac care to be audited and benchmarked to support a quality improvement approach to data collection. This will cover acute treatment of heart attacks, implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators, cardiac surgery, management of adult congenital heart disease and, in due course, follow-up of heart attack patients and management of heart failure. We anticipate being able to move forward with this soon.

We do not have plans to audit lipid services. The National Advisory Committee for Heart Disease (NACHD) are considering how a national Familial Hypercholesterolemia strategy may be developed and taken forward. Any potential audit of lipid services will be included as part of these discussions.