Chamber and committees

The number of babies that required specialist neonatal care by NHS Board of residence in each of the last three years is presented in the following table. The data includes live singleton and multiple births; stillbirths are excluded. Babies in Intensive Care, High Dependency Unit, Special Care and Transitional Care are included in the total of babies requiring specialist neonatal care.

Live births requiring specialist neonatal care, by NHS Board of residence, 2013-14 to 2015-16

This information is not held centrally. Data is collected quarterly from all Boards for waiting times for a first appointment/assessment at the pain clinic/service and waiting times for a first pain psychology services appointment. These data (both adjusted and unadjusted) are reported quarterly by NHS National Services Scotland’s Information Services Division and is available at https://www.isdscotland.org/. The data published so far is from the quarter ending 31 December 2015. It is important to note that these data are Non-Official Statistics and remain caveated as developmental.

NHS Education For Scotland aim to publish the revised framework in April 2017.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a review into the appropriateness of perinatal mental health services. However, we have taken note of recent reports by the NSPCC (“Getting It Right”, published in April 2015) and the Mental Welfare Commission (“Perinatal Themed Visit Report: Keeping Mothers and Babies In Mind”, published in June 2016). Both of these reports examine perinatal mental health services in Scotland. We are thinking carefully about the best way to improve perinatal mental health services in Scotland, and will lay out more details on how we propose to do that in the forthcoming 10-year Mental Health Strategy, including funding a managed clinical network.

This information is not held centrally. We expect that mental health care and treatment will be delivered by all NHS Boards in a person-centred manner to meet each individual’s needs. That includes the appropriate provision of clinical psychologists to meet local circumstances.

The Scottish Government expects psychological therapies to be provided across the whole breadth of mental health services whenever appropriate, including perinatal mental health services.

The revised perinatal mental health curricular framework, to be published by NHS Education For Scotland, will focus on the educational needs of practitioners who support families in the perinatal period - defined as pregnancy and the twelve months following the birth of a child. The revised framework will emphasise the importance of addressing the psychological needs of women, their partners, and infants, including supporting parent-infant relationships, during this period.

The incumbent National Chronic Pain Co-ordinator is employed by NHS Fife. The Scottish Government provides reimbursement to the Board for protected work time via a Service Level Agreement (SLA). To deliver this service, NHS Fife provides a member of staff at Band 8a for 0.4 Whole Time Equivalent.

For the operating costs of the national chronic pain groups, I would refer the member to the answers to questions S5W-01879 and S5W-01880 on 7 September 2016. 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.

It is envisaged that the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain (NACCP) will maintain continuity and consistency of stakeholder involvement through cross membership from the National Chronic Pain Improvement Group (which came to its natural end, based on its role and remit, in March 2016) and the Ministerial Steering Group on Chronic Pain.

The Scottish Government provides policies, frameworks and resources to NHS Boards to allow them to deliver services that meet the needs of their local populations. The Scottish Government expects healthcare professionals to follow locally agreed and national clinical guidelines in the management of suspected psoriatic arthritis.

The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN), who are part of Health Improvement Scotland, have produced guidelines on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (guide 121). The guideline provides clinicians with evidence based recommendations on the diagnosis and management of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. It also provides a clear care pathway for clinicians to follow in terms of when to refer patients for specialist assessment and/or treatment.