Chamber and committees

Health Protection Scotland have reported data on community acquired cases of clostridium difficile (C. diff) since January 2017 and so cannot be provided back to 1999. The following link provides recent information on cases of community acquired C. diff. 

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The use of GP phone and video call consultations is a local decision made by NHS Boards and their contractors. Once the new GMS Contract is introduced GP practices will provide agreed information on consultation rates, consultation types, health care professional being consulted and complexity within consultations. This will be done using the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE) electronic extraction unless the practice wishes to collect the information itself.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Crisis bed-management mode is not a term that the Scottish Government recognises. Each hospital site have a management system in place for capacity and would relate this to escalation procedures as required. We have issued guidance on improving management of whole system capacity through improved communication in morning safety flow huddles.

Weekly official statistics are published on emergency department activity and performance in Scotland, which is a good whole system marker. These reports are available on the Information Services Division (ISD) website: http://www.isdscotland.org/Publications/index.asp

In partnership with Health Boards and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Scottish Government produced emergency department capacity management guidance through the 6 Essential Actions programme which offers a framework of escalation to proactively manage and prevent crowding in Emergency Departments and/or assessment areas.

This information is not centrally held.

Our Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care, which was published in December 2015, emphasised the importance of people having care plans in place to enable those who would benefit from palliative and end of life care to get access to it.

The Scottish Government wrote to all GP services in September 2017 to note the importance and value of fully completing Key Information Summaries to support person centred anticipatory care planning.

Scottish mental health and incapacity legislation is based on rights and principles. Our mental health legislation promotes patients’ rights and provides safeguards which include that any function should be carried out for the maximum benefit of the patient, with the minimum necessary restriction on the freedom of the patient and having regard to the views of the patient.

Our legislation is compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) and has never been found, in part or in whole, by the European Court of Human Rights to be incompatible with the Convention. In addition, the Human Rights Act 1998 ensures that every public authority in Scotland is obliged to act compatibly with the Convention and enables human rights cases to be taken in domestic courts.

We have recently implemented the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 2015 and are undertaking a range of work through the Mental Health Strategy to move forward Scottish mental health and incapacity legislation.

During the passage of the 2015 Act, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was influential. For example, measures were taken to strengthen the provisions in the existing 2003 Act. These promote supported decision making so that users are able to exercise their capacity. This includes:

• more autonomy for patients in the right to have a named person (often a relative or friend);

• promoting the right to make an advance statement setting out what treatments they would or would not like to be given; and

• promoting the right to support from an independent advocate.

The Scottish Government is working with partners including the Mental Welfare Commission, the Office of the Public Guardian and professional and human rights bodies to develop changes to the Adults with Incapacity Act (2000) in relation to deprivation of liberty, and to assess compliance with UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A full public consultation on reform of the Adults with Incapacity legislation has just been launched.

We have also commenced the review to consider how the provisions of the 2003 Act fulfil the needs of people with learning disability and autism.

The insolvency of the Dunne Group reinforced the importance of professional contract and supplier management during the delivery of key contracts and, as part of that, the need to monitor for any changes in the financial health of suppliers. It was this approach that helped identify Carillion as a risk at the first profit warning in July 2017. As a result of that warning, and contract management discussions with Carillion, the Scottish Government worked with a number of public bodies who may have been potentially impacted, to offer assistance and discuss contingencies during the late summer and autumn of 2017. These same procedures will help to secure and protect public services if another key supplier becomes insolvent. In addition, The Scottish Government works with colleagues across the rest of the UK to monitor the financial health of key suppliers.

As previously stated, the Scottish Government is planning on allocating additional funds to support these plans and the current estimate is that NHS Lothian will require an additional £15 million to deliver this project. This estimate is based on advice received direct from NHS Lothian, following an extensive process to prioritise service requirements against available capital funding. The Scottish Government will continue to engage direct with NHS Lothian and additional funding assumptions will be updated as their plans develop.

While expenditure for the Baby Box comes from the Health Budget line, this work, together with other health-funded interventions supporting families with very young children, contributes directly to the ambitions articulated in the Education and Skills portfolio.

A number of potential savings in upfront costs incurred in year one have been identified in 2018-19. These savings include procurement fees, legal advice and contract start-up costs. This was year one spend only, and will not be carried through into future years.

Procurement for Year 2 is currently underway