- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 November 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 16 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are any plans to require hospital visitors to wash their hands on leaving patients’ bedsides to combat the spread of MRSA.
Answer
The management of the spread of infection is complex and visitors are as likely to bring infection into hospitals, unknowingly, as to carry it away after a visit. Making hand hygiene compulsory for visitors would be difficult to enforce. We expect NHS boards to offer hand hygiene advice, particularly in the context of outbreaks or for infected patients in isolation. The Chief Medical Officer has issued Top Tips which guide visitors on how to help reduce the spread of infection.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 November 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what events are planned in Scotland as part of the UK Year of the Volunteer 2005, as announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to S2W-11696, answered on 9 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 11 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive when the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s (COPFS) report into the impact of section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act (2003), which makes specific reference to offences aggravated by religious prejudice, will be published, as referred to in Tackling Religious Hatred – Update on the Recommendations of the Cross-party Working Group on Religious Hatred.
Answer
The report is now available onthe COPFS Website:
http://www.crownoffice.gov.uk/publications/invrepofsect.doc.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what level of training domestic assistants receive in hospitals before being delegated responsibility for feeding patients who are too unwell to feed themselves.
Answer
The feeding of patients is an operational issue for local NHS health boards. In general domestic assistants are not involved in the feeding of patients.
However, training for domestic staff and other ancillary staff includes the principles of safe food hygiene and some NHS boards have trained domestic assistants to become ward hostesses. This role is intended to provide a supporting role, working with trained nurses and health care support workers to meet the nutritional needs of patients. Common elements of this role are the distribution and collection of menus and meal trays to patients.
The Scottish Executive has funded the development and delivery of an open learning programme on nutrition for 11,000 healthcare clinical support staff in NHSScotland. This covers understanding basic nutrition, factors affecting food choice, common health problems in elderly people and their impact on nutritional needs, understanding basic nutrition, and what can be done to optimise nutritional care. NHS boards are rolling this programme out to all health care clinical support staff that assist patients to eat and drink.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what continued assistance will be provided to support the development of the Scottish Helpline for Older People and enable older people to get the answers they need as quickly as possible, in line with its initiative on improving the quality and consistency of information, announced by the Deputy Minister for Communities on 11 March 2004.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has provided a grant of £125,000 from the Improving Public Service Delivery Fund to develop a consortium of key organisations working to improve information for older people. Although we have had meetings with Age Concern to discuss the funding position, no application has yet been received for further funding. Any application for funding will of course be considered very carefully.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what support it will provide over the next three years to enable the development of a partnership and consortium-led approach in developing its initiative on accessing information for older people, announced by the Deputy Minister for Communities on 11 March 2004.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-11797, answered on 10 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 10 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to legislate for the inclusion of MRSA and other such infections as causes of death on death certificates.
Answer
The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) codes causes of death recorded by the certifying doctor following the Tenth Revision of the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD10). Currently, there is no specific code for MRSA, although there are codes for less specific staphylococcus infections, including staphylococcus aureus. WHO has approved the use of more detailed optional codes to identify antibiotic resistance. These new codes will be introduced from January 2006 and will be used by GROS.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 September 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 1 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what acreage of local authority playing fields has been sold since 1999, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 September 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 1 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many local authority playing fields that have been sold since 1999, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 September 2004
-
Current Status:
Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 28 October 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many new local authority outdoor sports facilities have opened since 1999, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-11095 answered on 28 October 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
