- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 22 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will issue clear guidance to GPs on the diagnosis of oesophageal cancer to encourage quicker referral of symptomatic patients for testing.
Answer
Action has been taken to ensure doctors across the country have up-to-date referral guidelines to ensure patients presenting with possible symptoms of oesophageal cancer are quickly and efficiently referred for further investigation.
A Health Department Letter (HDL) was issued in 2007, HDL (2007) 9 Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, with the aim of increasing awareness of cancer symptoms, including oesophageal cancer, amongst GPs and other healthcare professionals. This is available at:
www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/HDL2007_09.pdf.
A quick reference guideline based on the HDL was issued earlier this year to all GPs across Scotland. This is available at www.scotland.gov.uk/quickreferenceguide/suspectedcancer.
The referral guidelines and quick reference guide further support other relevant clinical guidelines such as SIGN Guideline 87 on the Management of Oesophageal and Gastric Cancer and SIGN Guideline 68 on Dyspepsia (which is due to be updated next year). Managed clinical networks use such guidelines to develop patient referral and care pathways.
There are currently no plans to issue additional guidance to GPs on the diagnosis of oesophageal cancer.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 22 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason the real-time data on infection rates by hospital is not available on the NHS web portal and whether it will list the hospitals for which no data has been supplied.
Answer
The purpose of the HAI (healthcare associated infection) task force web portal is to provide the public with quick and easy access to the relevant NHS board website pages where all local information is contained and updated.
The chief executive of NHS Scotland wrote to all chief executives on 4 December 2009 to ask that all NHS board websites provide a direct link to a section that contains previous and current HAI reporting templates by end December 2009.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 22 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive what the incidence of breast cancer was in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08, (c) 2008-09 and (d) April to October 2009.
Answer
Data on the incidence of breast cancer are available by calendar year at:
http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/servlet/FileBuffer?namedFile=i_cancer_breast.xls&pContentDispositionType=inline.
The most recent calendar year for which complete registrations are available is calendar year 2007.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many dementia specialist nurses are employed in the NHS, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
The information requested is not centrally available. However, the number of Clinical nurse specialists in mental illness broken down by specialty and NHS board is available from National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland from the website link:
http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html - cns.
It should be recognised that a wide range of health professionals, which includes medical staff, clinical nurse specialists and allied health professionals are needed to care for patients with specific conditions such as dementia.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how it plans to monitor the expenditure and performance of each NHS board against each of the objectives of the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for Primary and Community Care.
Answer
A working group has been established to evaluate the progress made by each NHS board under the programme. NHS boards submitted interim reports on expenditure and performance in August 2008 and we will be undertaking a further round of information gathering next March.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive what funding was provided to each NHS board to implement the objectives of the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for Primary and Community Care in 2009-10.
Answer
The amount allocated to each NHS board under the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for 2009-10 is detailed in the following table:
| NHS Board | Amount |
| Ayrshire and Arran | £955,486 |
| Borders | £246,968 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | £367,314 |
| Fife | £781,862 |
| Forth Valley | £656,050 |
| Grampian | £1,093,873 |
| Greater Glasgow and Clyde | £3,852,930 |
| Highland | £811,891 |
| Lanarkshire | £1,382,541 |
| Lothian | £1,684,575 |
| Orkney | £43,090 |
| Shetland | £45,965 |
| Tayside | £1,003,616 |
| Western Isles | £73,839 |
| Total | £13,000,000 |
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many nurses are employed in the NHS and how many are (a) registered and (b) not registered.
Answer
Figures for (a) registered and (b) not registered nurses are not held centrally. However, an approximation for registered nurses would be Agenda for Change band 5 and above and bands 1-4 for nurses not registered. NHSScotland workforce data is published by National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland. Nursing figures are shown by band grouping at
http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html - staff_in_post.
The number of nursing staff (excluding midwifery) employed at 30 September 2009 was (head count) 64,836, up from 63,400 in 2008.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many alcohol liaison nurses are employed in the NHS, broken down by (a) NHS board, (b) hospital and (c) primary care setting.
Answer
The information requested is not centrally available. The data on the number of nurses employed by the NHS as at 30 September each year is published by National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland and is available from the website link:
http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 17 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive whether any payments, additional to basic salary, were made to senior executives of the Scottish Ambulance Service who left the service during or following the investigation into the leadership culture of the organisation.
Answer
Employment matters within NHSScotland are the responsibility of health boards and the Scottish Government is not party to agreements reached between boards and their employees. (Boards are however required to notify the Scottish Government of any termination payments to employees which exceed their basic contractual entitlement. I can confirm that no such notification was received from the Scottish Ambulance Service.)
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 December 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 17 December 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in achieving the HEAT target to “reduce the annual rate of increase of defined daily dose per capita of antidepressants to zero by 2009-10 and put in place the required support framework to achieve a 10% reduction in future years”.
Answer
The following table shows the percentage change of defined daily dose (DDD) per capita of antidepressants using the HEAT target measure. This measure tracks change on the basis of a rolling twelve month period and has always been, and continues to be, the method set and agreed for tracking progress against the target.
| Year Ending | Scotland % change |
| 30-06-2006 | 0.21% |
| 30-09-2006 | 0.89% |
| 31-12-2006 | 1.58% |
| 31-03-2007 | 1.64% |
| 30-06-2007 | 0.96% |
| 30-09-2007 | 1.77% |
| 31-12-2007 | 1.54% |
| 31-03-2008 | 1.12% |
| 30-06-2008 | 0.29% |
| 30-09-2008 | 1.17% |
| 31-12-2008 | 1.43% |
| 31-03-2009 | 1.19% |
| 30-06-2009 | 1.33% |
