Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is working closely with NHS Lothian to ensure that the delay in the construction of the new Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh is kept to a minimum.

NHS Lothian had prepared a comprehensive and well developed commissioning and migration plan for the transfer of services from existing facilities based on the contractual handover date to the Board. This is now subject to review on receipt of a revised handover date from the Project Company. While it is disappointing not to be moving from existing facilities as previously anticipated, NHS Lothian recognise the cause of the delay and will respond in a positive manner to a revised programme demonstrating that neither health and safety, nor quality will be compromised in its delivery.

The hiring of new contractors is the responsibility of the consortium building the new facilities and they have a number of contingency plans in place to deal with the delay. This includes actions such as keeping a dialogue open with other sub-contractors who had bid for the original contract, dialogue with suppliers of the sub-contractors so they can take over supply of material and or labour if necessary and constant interaction with the workforce so they have the ability to hire personnel in the short term.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

This information is not centrally available.

Chiropractors are complementary and alternative practitioners who provide services outside that which is offered by the NHS. As such information on waiting times for chiropractors are not collected.

Most funding provided by the Scottish Government is to support both adult and young carers and is not separated out. Between 2008 and 2017 we invested nearly £39 million in Health Boards' Carer Information Strategies for support to adult and young carers.

Since 2012 we have also invested over £300,000 in workforce development which includes programmes working with young carers.

For young carer specific support, the Scottish Government has provided over £2 million for the annual Young Carers Festival, and for other initiatives. We also fund the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance to support the development of services for young carers.

The total amount for supporting carers in 2007 is likely to be less than in any year from 2008, as the existing initiatives were not in place then.

These complaint statistics are not held centrally.

Our ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’ strategy and the accompanying £100 million investment over 5 years, serves as a blueprint for the future of cancer services in Scotland, improving the prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and aftercare of people affected by all cancers. This work links with our tobacco control strategy and the Prevention of Obesity Route Map as we know that smoking and obesity are two of the biggest risk factors for renal cancer.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all patients receive timely access to cancer tests and diagnostics. The funding identified in ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’ will ensure additional diagnostic, scope, imaging and treatment capacity is made available to everyone with a suspected and/or cancer diagnosis.

Prescribers of any medication, to anyone, are required to explain the rationale for prescribing, the benefits, and the side effects.

NICE clinical guidelines [CG28] cover depression in children and young people, and contain guidance on the use of antidepressants. Information about known-side effects of prescribed medication can be found on the website of the Medicines And Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, at www.gov.uk/mhra.

Within this additional funding £15 million has also been made available through the Mental Health Innovation Fund during 2015-18 to develop innovative approaches to delivering mental health services.

The Scottish Government promotes evidence based practice for psychological therapies and has funded NHS Education for Scotland to publish the Matrix, which provides a summary of the information on the current evidence base for various therapeutic approaches and guidance and advice on psychological therapies services. The latest version of the Matrix was published in 2015 and includes a section on the range of treatments available.

The Matrix includes reference to individually tailored interventions drawn from a range of psychological models. The Matrix and the data tables this is based upon are available online at:

http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/education-and-training/by-discipline/psychology/the-matrix-(2015)-a-guide-to-delivering-evidence-based-psychological-therapies-in-scotland/the-matrix-(2015)-a-guide-to-delivering-evidence-based-psychological-therapies-in-scotland.aspx.

Scotland’s world-leading drugs strategy, the Road to Recovery, focuses on the needs of the individual and provides a range of interventions where needed to support recovery. We are now in the third phase of Road to Recovery – ensuring quality is embedded across all services in Scotland, addressing variations in practice and identifying and addressing areas for improvement. Our strategy aims to ensure that those who need treatment get it as soon as possible and we have developed a set of Quality Principles for individuals accessing alcohol and drug services to ensure that people have access to the highest quality, person centred services to enable and support their recovery.