Chamber and committees

The number of health visitors employed by NHSScotland is published quarterly by Board.

• Data from 2015 to the most recent data, published on 5 December 2017, can be found at https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-03-06/Health_Visitors_D2017.xls .

Further notes:

• Further information on the statistics, including information on how the data are collected and notes to aid interpretation, is given in the 'FAQs' section of the Workforce Statistics website at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce/

Numbers of Consultants working in Surgical Specialities have increased by 41.7% during the lifetime of this government.

Information on consultant vacancy figures, of which consultants working in surgical specialities is a sub category, is published by ISD Scotland and is available at the following web links:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-03-06/Consultant_Vacancies_D2017.xls .

and

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2012-11-27/Consultant_Vacancies_S2012.xls?40942485 .

Information on how many NHS surgeon positions remained unfilled in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS Board, is not centrally held. Specific local information may be available from individual NHSScotland Boards.

There is currently no centrally held data for the number of people entitled to an adult respite care break. The new Carers Census will collect data from Carer's Centres and local authorities about Carers who have an adult care support plan, whether they have a need for a respite care break and whether they received a respite care break. Initial data will be available later in 2018.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 took effect on 1 April 2018. Adult carers now have the right to an adult carer support plan to identify their personal outcomes so that their eligible needs are supported. Local authorities must consider whether support to a carer should take the form of, or include, a break from caring.

Integration Authorities also have new responsibilities under the Act to:

• establish and maintain an information and advice service for carers; and
• publish short breaks services statements providing information about short breaks available for both carers and those they care for.

The Scottish Government is supporting local delivery of these duties by:

• Publishing statutory guidance to accompany the Act which covers the provision of short breaks and provides examples of what a short break may consist of;
• Publishing a Carers’ charter which provides clear, accessible information on carers rights under the Act;
• Funding of the Coalition of Carers in Scotland (COCIS) to produce a leaflet on short breaks under the Act for use by local authorities;
• Funding Shared Care Scotland to maintain an online short breaks directory that local authorities can access;
• Supporting the development of a short breaks services statement template by a group of local authority representatives and Shared Care Scotland.

The Scottish Government has also provided over £23 million between 2010-11-2017-18 for the voluntary-sector Short Breaks Fund, administered by Shared Care Scotland and the Family Fund. We have committed a further £3 million for 2018-19.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 took effect on 1 April 2018. Provisions include the right to an adult carer support plan to identify each adult carer’s personal outcomes so that their eligible needs are supported. Local authorities must consider whether support to a carer should take the form of, or include, a break from caring.

The Scottish Government supports local authorities with their duty to offer eligible adult carers a short break as part of the implementation of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 by:

• including an additional £66 million in the 2018-19 budget to support additional expenditure by local government on social care, including for implementation of the Carers Act;
• Publishing statutory guidance to accompany the Act which covers the provision of short breaks and provides examples of what a short break may consist of;
• Funding of the Coalition of Carers in Scotland (COCIS) to produce a leaflet on short breaks under the Act for use by local authorities;
• Funding Shared Care Scotland to maintain an online short breaks directory that local authorities can access;
• Supporting the development of a short breaks services statement template by a group of local authority representatives and Shared Care Scotland.

This specific information is not held centrally.

Integration Authorities are responsible for strategic planning of adult social care services. Since April, Integration Authorities also have new responsibilities under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 for local carer strategies setting out carer support available locally, including short breaks, and an assessment of demand. They are also responsible for publishing short breaks services statements providing information about short breaks available for both carers and those they care for.

Data from the Respite Care Survey 2014-15 ( http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/6824 ) shows that:

• 31% of respite weeks were for overnight care such as in a care home; 65% was daytime respite care and 4% was provided as a direct payment.
• Older people aged 65+ were more likely to use overnight respite. 36% of older people using respite services had overnight respite care compared to 23% of those aged 18-64 and 31% of children.
• 89% of overnight respite nights took place in a care home setting, 4% at the person’s own home and 7% in another setting.

The "Valuing Carers 2015" report authored by Professor Sue Yeandle (University of Sheffield) and Dr Lisa Buckner (University of Leeds) estimates that carers in Scotland provided care services to the value of £10.8 billion in 2015.

No analysis has been carried out specifically on the impact of adult respite care on the number of primary care admissions. Section 4.6.7 of the “Scotland’s Carers” publication published 24 March 2015 talks about the impact of short breaks or respite. The Carers Act Monitoring and Evaluation Group is currently carrying out an Evaluability Assessment and this will be looking at what data currently exists on respite and what the priorities are for further analysis going forward.

Data showing the cases of exclusion for each local authority for the academic years 1999-00 -2002-03 is available on the Scottish Government website here:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2004/09/19874/42462

Data showing the cases of exclusion for each local authority for the academic years 2003-04 – 2016-17 is available in table 24 of the supplementary tables, on the Scottish Government website here:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/exclusiondatasets/exclusionsdataset2017

Since 2010-11 the data has been collected biennially so no data is held for 2011-12, 2013-14 or 2015-16.

Cases of exclusion refers to the number of incidences of exclusion, not the number of individual pupils excluded, as a pupil can be excluded multiple times.

The Scottish Government works closely with the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). This independent expert advisory group advises Ministers and the NHS in the four UK countries about all aspects of screening policy using the international research evidence base and establishing pilot programmes where appropriate to collect additional evidence.

The UK NSC and the Scottish Government recognise that lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK and, unless found at an early stage, the outcome is poor. Nevertheless, the UK NSC does not currently recommend a national screening programme for lung cancer because there is not yet enough evidence that this is a good approach to reduce the burden of the disease. In particular there are concerns around significant over-diagnosis leading to potentially invasive investigations in people who are well.

The policy is due to be reviewed again, taking into account the results of the NELSON randomised lung cancer screening trial. If there is any change to the policy this will be carefully considered by the Scottish Government.