Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Distribution of the Integrated Care Fund is a matter for local Health and Social Care Partnerships based on their strategic plan and the needs of the local communities that they serve.

Allocations from the Integrated Care Fund (ICF) are part of the overall resources available to Health and Social Care Partnerships and sit within the context of Partnerships’ strategic commissioning plans. From 2016-17 reporting on ICF spend, and outcomes achieved, will be through Health and Social Care Partnerships’ annual performance reports. These will be published from July 2017.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 requires each Integration Joint board (Health and Social Care Partnership) to publish an annual performance report setting out an assessment of performance in planning and carrying out the integration functions for which they are responsible. Health and Social Care Partnerships will report on the use of the Integrated Care Fund through their annual performance reports.

It is for independently contracted practices to decide how best to communicate with their patients. There are no current plans to introduce a national text appointments service. Decisions at practice or NHS board level allow solutions to integrate with existing processes and systems, and to be responsive to local circumstances.

The Scottish Government outlined plans on 11 March 2016 to provide £2 million additional funding to improve or upgrade IT infrastructure in GP practices as part of a £20 million package for GPs to ease pressures on the workforce over the next year. This is in addition to the primary care digital services delivery fund, announced in June 2015, which is providing £6 million over three years to improve access to GP digital and online services, enhance GP systems, and encourage innovation and research in GP digital services.

The following tables shows the number of people from Scotland who have received treatment in hospitals in other parts of the UK in each year since 1999. The data across the UK is not directly comparable due to differences in data definitions.

Information is provided in the following table on the number of finished admission episodes for patients resident in Scotland who have received healthcare from the NHS in England since 1999.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital (England)

Information is provided in the following table on the number of patients resident in Scotland who have received healthcare from the NHS in Wales since 1999.

Source: Patient Episode Database Wales (PEDW), NHS Wales Informatics Service

Information is provided in the following table on the number of patients resident in Scotland who have received healthcare from the NHS in Northern Ireland since 1999.

Source: Hospital Inpatient System, Northern Ireland Health Department

^P -Provisional

The vast majority of Scotland’s health statistics are collected and published in accordance with the UK National Statistics Code of Practice. National Services Scotland (through Information Services Division) is the main producer of Scottish health statistics.

The UK statistics authority works in partnership with amongst others, the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician and the Head of Profession at National Services Scotland, to ensure compliance against this code. The code emphasises key aspects of quality and the Scottish Government welcomes the assurance that this provides to all users of Scottish health statistics.

The statisticians and data experts involved in the collection, analysis and publication of health statistics work closely with users of their statistics. User feedback is welcomed and is important to the continuous improvement agenda that is key to the work of those producing Scotland’s health statistics.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information for independently contracted practices. It does expect patients to be offered an appointment with a member of GP practice staff within two days; the latest figures (Health and Care Experience Survey 2015-16) show that nearly 92% of people were able to get a consultation within that time.

The figures on the percentage of patients able to arrange an appointment with a member of GP practice staff within two days by board are given in the following table:

Figures broken down by GP practice are held at the following website: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/GPPatientExperienceSurvey/HACE2015-16/LDP-GP

Obtaining informed consent, which is primarily a matter for clinicians working in NHS Scotland and their patients, can only be achieved through partnership and joint decision making. The General Medical Council (GMC) has produced comprehensive guidance, Good Medical Practice and Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together. This sets out the principles on which good clinical decisions should be based. It also provides a framework for good practice that covers the various situations that doctors may face in the course of their work. The guidance can be found at: http://www.gmcuk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/consent_guidance_how_guidance_applies_to_you.asp

The Scottish Government expects all NHS boards and their clinicians to adhere to the GMC guidance and to have clinical governance arrangements in place to ensure that the principles and framework contained in the guidance are applied by all doctors when seeking informed consent to treatment from patients.

The Scottish Government has agreed with Scottish General Practitioners Committee to begin extracting data this transitional year (01 April 2016 to 31 March 2017). This has two purposes:

The creation of an anonymised extraction process at a practice cluster level will support quality improvement activities across a group of practices within a cluster.

The creation of an anonymised extraction process will support service planning and delivery in the new integrated partnerships.

This extraction of patient information follows the abolition of the quality of outcomes framework and will begin towards the end of September 2016.