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The Scottish Government is clear that the single crewing of traditional double crewed emergency ambulances should only happen in exceptional circumstances, such as short notice sickness absence when cover cannot be secured. The Scottish Ambulance Service is working hard to try and deliver this.

The information requested is not held centrally for the period sought.

However, across Scotland the Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that total incidence of single crewing for April to June 2012 (inclusive) was 469 shifts, representing 1.0% of those shifts that were rostered to be double crewed. Of that total, many of the instances of single crewing occurred due to exceptional circumstances. Excluding these, the figure for single crewed shifts under non-exceptional circumstances was 0.7% across Scotland.

The information requested is not held centrally.

However, the latest annual national NHS complaints statistics (covering the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012) were published last month by the Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland, and are available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Quality-Improvement/Publications/2012-09-25/2012-09-25-Complaints-Report.pdf.

ISD published statistics show that for the second year in succession there has been a reduction in the number of complaints to the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The figures show that 214 complaints were recorded between 1 April 2011 and 31 March 2012 compared to 374 recorded between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011. This represents a 43% reduction in complaints.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that it does not use private ambulances in Scotland.

It is for each Partnership to decide how it wants to disburse Early Years and Reshaping Care for Older People Change Fund resources locally. Allocations from the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund are still to be made but it will provide funding for partnerships of third and public sector organisations.

In August 2011, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth convened a short-term, high-level group of Scottish ministers, trade union and employers’ representatives to consider the UK Government’s policy of increasing employee contributions to public service pensions by an average of 3.2% of pensionable pay. That group met three times during August and September 2011.

Tri-partite negotiations on public service pension reform in Scotland are being taken forward at individual scheme level. Cabinet Secretaries initiated these negotiations in March 2012. Representative trade unions and staff associations are involved in each negotiating group and a wide range of issues have been discussed. Negotiations are ongoing.

The information requested is not held centrally, this is an operational matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The 2012-13 Reshaping Care for Older People Change Fund of £80 million is 0.7% of the total Health and Social Care Budget.

Yes.

The law requires that any action for damages arising from a personal injury – including asbestos-related diseases - should be made within a three-year period.

The Scottish Government is committed to modernising the law on damages for personal injury and intends to publish a consultation paper, by the end of the year, which will be informed by the Scottish Law Commission’s report and recommendations on Limitation and Prescribed Cases. This consultation paper will set out the Scottish Government’s policy position on principles relating to the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 and invite views on how the law should be reformed.

Following consultation, it would be our intention to legislate on these issues in the course of this Parliament. The terms of such legislation will of course take account of the outcome of the consultation.

Tables setting out the number of patients and costs, by NHS board, who were referred to the pain management centre at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, in Bath, in 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and in 2012-13 (up to 21 September 2012) are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number:54296). The information requested is not available for 2007-08.