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Officials from the four administrations have considered the second Firefly report and are now discussing options for future funding.

We are also awaiting completion of a further evaluation by Firefly which is looking in more detail at the impact of the health grant on Thalidomiders in Scotland. The results of this further evaluation will help to fully inform our thinking.

An Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA) was undertaken prior to the Patient Rights draft Bill being introduced to the Scottish Parliament in March 2010. A separate EQIA was also undertaken for the treatment time guarantee contained in the bill to ensure it complied with equality law.

In taking forward their own local access policy on acute hospital waiting times standards and targets including the legal guarantee we would expect boards to undertake their own equalities impact assessment.

The operation of the treatment time guarantee is contained in the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, in the Treatment Time Guarantee Regulations and Directions as well as the guidance issued by the Scottish Government in August 2012. Links to the Regulations and Directions are:

www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2012_17.pdf.

The guidance on the treatment time guarantee can be found at:

http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2012_32.pdf.

The Scottish Government expects NHS boards to ensure they comply with the law for each individual patient.

Body armour is not routinely issued to ambulance personnel.

However, the Scottish Government has worked with the Scottish Ambulance Service to enhance the equipment for their specialist operations teams to deal with a specific major incident.

The Special Operations Response Teams (SORT) are specially trained and equipped, including body armour, to deliver life-saving clinical interventions to patients, including members of the other emergency services, who may be injured during certain types of major incident such as firearms attacks.

In any other circumstance where a staff member makes a request for body armour, a risk assessment is carried out in line with Scottish Ambulance Service policy.

Risk assessments were carried out in March this year and covered the Scottish Ambulance Service’s response to gunshot and stabbing incidents; prison incidents, and civil disturbances.

The risk assessment did not result in a recommendation for the issue of body armour to front line staff.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has no plans to introduce body armour for ambulance personnel. The only exception is the body armour available to the Scottish Ambulance Service’s Special Operations Response Team to respond to specific major incidents.

In any other circumstance where a staff member makes a request for body armour, a risk assessment is carried out in line with Scottish Ambulance Service policy.

This information is not held centrally. This is a matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

While recognising that post-traumatic hypopituitarism is an important topic, SIGN is unable to include it in the remit of this guideline. A proposal to develop a separate guideline on this topic has been received and it is currently being assessed for inclusion in the future Healthcare Improvement Scotland work programme.