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It is for the Scottish Ambulance Service to determine how and where to invest the resourcesit receives from the Scottish Government - £177.8 million in 2007-08 - inproviding emergency and non-emergency patient transport services for the peopleof Scotland and to ensure value for money. The ambulance service may alsoreceive additional resources from a territorial NHS board where there isagreement that such investment is required as a consequence of re-configurationof hospital services within the local area.

For 2007-08 the Scottish Ambulance Service has budgeted £11.4 million in support of services tothe area of NHS Lanarkshire with £7.8 million going to the emergency serviceand £1.9 million to patient transport. The balance will be spent on items suchas fuel costs, vehicle maintenance, accommodation costs, heating, equipment,drugs and consumables. The Lanarkshire area benefited from targeted investmentin 2006-07 with an extra 43 staff (a mix of paramedics, technicians andambulance care assistants) being taken on bringing the total whole-time equivalentestablishment to 356.

The ScottishGovernment monitors the performance of the ambulance service’s emergency andpatient transport services on a regular basis. The Cabinet Secretary for Healthand Wellbeing will be discussing the ambulance service’s performance and how itplans to continue to improve its services to patients as part of its annualreview on 15 August.

NHS Lanarkshire hasprovided the following information on consultant vacancies at Monklands Hospital, broken down as follows:

Department/Area	Number of Vacancies
Accident and Emergency	1
Respiratory	1
Cardiology	1
ENT	1*
Orthopaedics	2
Radiology	2
Total	8

Note: *This is anNHS Lanarkshire wide service based at Monklands.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-752 on 19 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-752 on 18 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-752 on 18 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-752 on 18 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-752 on 18 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

This is a matterfor NHS Lanarkshire.

This is a matterfor NHS Lanarkshire.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-904 on 22 June 2007. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.