Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has recently provided funding to Action for M.E. to enable them to take forward a 12 month project. The Inform ME Scotland project will reach out to health and social care professionals and engage them in discussions about how to improve the support available to people with ME.

Information on the number of intensive-care and non-intensive care beds is provided for each hospital between 2003 and 2016. The tables are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 58740).

The Scottish Government appreciates the role played by third sector organisations, and associated campaigns, which aim to provide support and information to people living with conditions such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

Scottish Government has a good relationship with Action for M.E. and is working closely with them to improve the lives of people who live with the condition.

Researchers can apply to the Chief Scientist Office for funding. The CSO's Translational Clinical Studies Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committees each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website.

http://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/funding-2/

Applications looking at the underlying causes, diagnosis and treatment of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) are welcomed. In common with all other applications, these would go through the CSO's standard independent peer review process.

It is the role of the Scottish Government to provide policies, frameworks and resources to NHS Boards so they can deliver services that meet the needs of their local populations. The provision of healthcare services is the responsibility of local Boards, taking into account national guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment.

Scottish Government expects people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis to be able to access appropriate care and support via their local NHS Board.

198 GP practices use Vision Online Services. 775 GP practices are not currently using Vision Online Services.

The requested information is not held centrally.

Any violence or aggression against NHSScotland staff is unacceptable and we have policies in place to provide and continuously improve a safe working environment. Details can be found at the following link:-http://www.staffgovernance.scot.nhs.uk/media/1399/gender-based-violence-employee-pin-policy.pdf

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-08980 on 10 May 2017. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government was aware of the issues impacting on performance at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) on Thursday 20 April, which was due to a surge in demand following the Easter holidays. In terms of planning for peak periods and holiday weekends we would expect all parts of the hospital, in collaboration with social, primary and secondary care partners, to take action to ensure sufficient capacity is available in order to provide an optimal service for patients.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving performance on a sustainable basis and unnecessary long waits in A&E are not acceptable. NHS Lothian Health Board offered its assurance that the RIE quickly recovered its A&E performance following higher than average attendances at the RIE. Performance against the four hour target at the RIE in the week ending 23 April was 93.9%.

NHS Lothian is working closely with the National Unscheduled Care Team to implement and enhance working practices to support meeting its A&E waiting times target, minimising delays for patients. The National Unscheduled Care Team was on site at the RIE at the end of April to discuss this continuous improvement approach under the Six Essential Actions programme. We have been supporting the RIE to roll out ‘Daily Dynamic Discharge’ across its wards, which is aimed at improving the timeliness and quality of patient care from arrival to discharge from the hospital.

In terms of expanding the capacity of A&E services we would expect NHS Lothian to keep capacity of A&E services at the RIE under review.

Data detailing spending on additional support for learning is collected from local authorities via the Local Financial Returns (LFR). There are four years of data available on spending for additional support for learning, from 2012-13 to 2015-16.

As highlighted in the answer to question S5W-08627, there are issues around the quality of this data. Work is on-going to improve the consistency of the data that is returned. However, the lack of consistency in how local authorities have broken down the information to primary, secondary and special categories means that this data does not consistently represent the levels of spending in different categories of schools in local authorities.

Table 1 - which should not be used to make comparisons between years and between local authorities - shows the reported gross revenue expenditure on additional support for learning education (Primary) from 2012-13 to 2015-16

Source: Local Financial Returns – Education (LFR 1) statistical return provided by local authorities to the Scottish Government.

Table 2 - which should not be used to make comparisons between years and between local authorities - shows the reported gross revenue expenditure on additional support for learning education (Secondary) from 2012-13 to 2015-16

Source: Local Financial Returns – Education (LFR 1) statistical return provided by local authorities to the Scottish Government.

Table 3 - which should not be used to make comparisons between years and between local authorities - shows the reported gross revenue expenditure on additional support for learning education (Special) from 2012-13 to 2015-16

Source: Local Financial Returns – Education (LFR 1) statistical return provided by local authorities to the Scottish Government.