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This information is not heldcentrally.

The centrally availableinformation on consultants identifies the specialty of the consultant and not anyspecific area of expertise.

However, the majority ofpatients with eating disorders receive their treatment in the specialties ofgeneral medicine, general psychiatry and paediatric medicine. Information onthe number of consultants within these specialties as can be found in tables B8to B13 at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

There are currently no plansto allow midwives to decide their own caseloads. The models used by health boardsin determining midwives caseloads will be examined as part of the programme of the newly formed National Maternity Services Workforce Planning Group.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Acting Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Herresponse is as follows:

We are unable to supply theinformation requested. Communities Scotland collects the information on evictions on an annualbasis (as at 31 March each year). We will be able to supply annual informationabout evictions for this organisation after they submit their return in Junethis year.

The Scottish Executive currently collects information on the number of eviction actions takenagainst council tenants which proceeded to court, the number of cases whichresulted in an eviction order and the number of cases which resulted in aneviction. This return only commenced in April 2001 and data are available forGlasgow City Council up to December 2002. Data on applications which did notresult in a court case are not collected centrally.The data on evictions foreach local authority are published quarterly in the Scottish Executive Statistical Bulletin (Housing Series) Housing Trends in Scotland.This is available online in the published data section of the HousingStatistics Branch reference site (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/housing/hsbref), or from the SPICe library.

For the financial year2001-02, there were 2,779 actions taken which proceeded to court. For the lastperiod during which Glasgow City Council submitted a return, which was April-December2002, there were 1,787 eviction actions which proceeded to court.

The total number ofmidwifery students who have discontinued from their course for the periodrequested is shown in the following table. There is no single reason as to whymidwifery students discontinue from their studies. However, the most commonlyreported reasons are financial circumstances or a change in personalcircumstances.

Total Number of MidwiferyStudents Discontinued, 2001-03

	2001	2002	2003
No. of people	73	57	52
Attrition %	12%	9.3%	8.2%

I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-5128 on 20 January 2004 which is available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

This is a matter for GreaterGlasgow NHS Board.

The information is notavailable in the form requested. Latest figures indicate that, between Apriland December 2003, a total of 989 operations were cancelled, of which 109 wereattributed to a lack of beds.

There are many explanationsfor the cancellation of operations, other than a shortage of beds. Operationswhich are cancelled perfectly legitimately, and in advance, range from surgeryno longer required, surgery done elsewhere, patient not fit, and patients notturning up.

We are currently consideringthe timescale for the introduction of the revised NHS Complaints Procedure. Aspart of this, work is under way to develop a specification for the independentadvice service which NHS boards should commission to support patients using therevised procedure.