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Information on the “off-licence” use of medicines is not held centrally and no audit of such use has been carried out. The Chief Scientist Office is not currently supporting any research on off-licence use of medicines.

The safety profile of all marketed medicines is continually reviewed by the UK licensing authority, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the balance of risks and benefits re-evaluated as necessary.

Gabapentin is an effective anti-epileptic medicine licensed for the treatment of focal seizures in epilepsy and for the treatment of neuropathic (nerve) pain. The decision whether to prescribe Gabapentin is a matter for the clinician in consultation with the patient, taking into account the patient’s medical history, including where there is a known history of substance misuse. All NHS boards monitor GP prescribing through the use of the Prescribing Information System for Scotland (PRISMS).

There are no current plans to review the use of Gabapentin.

The Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland (2011) inform the current programme of inspections by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) into the care of all older people, and those with dementia at all ages, in acute general hospital.

This programme of inspections includes a focus on the issues around the design of dementia environments. Individual inspection reports are on the HIS website http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/welcome_to_healthcare_improvem.aspx. The inspections are part of the wider Chief Nursing Officer-led improvement programme with NHS boards and others on the care of older people, and people with dementia at all ages, in hospitals.

While hospitals have also been self-auditing against the dementia standards, information is not held centrally specifically on any self-inspection or self-audit by individual hospitals against the standards on the design of care environments for people with dementia set out in the dementia standards.

It is important that all care for people with dementia in hospital is delivered in an appropriate environment. The standards on the design of care environments for people with dementia set out in The Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland (2011) apply to all areas in hospitals in which care for people with dementia is delivered.

To help services measure and assess the extent to which these standards are being met, the standards signpost services to the Design for People with Dementia: Audit Tool (2008), produced by The Dementia Services Development Centre at The University of Stirling in collaboration with Health Facilities Scotland. Services will also want to consider using any new design tools as appropriate to help them in meeting these standards.

The SWHMR is a paper record, however some of the information from individual SWHMR forms may be used to populate the SMR02 dataset, including information about drugs and alcohol.

Data collated within Scottish Women-Held Maternity Record (SWHMR) complements assessments undertaken at the handover between the midwife and the public health nurse delivering a woman’s maternity care; however this is not duplication in work, merely a prompt to facilitate important communication between health care professionals.

The SWHMR guidance for Professional Version 6 sets out how the information gathered in the SWHMR should be used by maternity care services to assist in the process of early communication and care planning for families with complex needs or identified vulnerabilities. The Health Plan Indicator (HPI) can be allocated either during the antenatal period by the midwife or by the health visitor/public health nurse and indicates the level of service required by families and can be “core” or “additional”. The HPI is a flexible tool and should reflect the child or family circumstances at any particular point. All children should have an HPI allocated by six months.

Pregnant Women, children and families with complex needs or identified vulnerabilities such as alcohol or substance misuse should be allocated an “additional” Health Plan Indicator. The allocation of an HPI requires a structured approach to assessment and any information on the allocation of an HPI should be shared during the hand over from midwife to health visitor/public health nurse.

This is a matter for the Principal Reporter. I can confirm that, in 2011-12, 360 children were referred to the reporter from health sources. This is from a total of 31,593 children referred in total during the year.

The Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) does not hold centrally the numbers of children where parental drug misuse is a factor in their referral. However, SCRA has published a number of research reports, which include examination of the extent and impact of parental drug misuse on children and young people referred to the reporter. These reports are available on the SCRA’s website www.scra.gov.uk.

Scottish Ministers have welcomed the recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to extend the influenza vaccination programme to children from two years to less than 17. We will be looking at the recommendation closely to decide how best to implement the programme.

The costs of vaccinating children aged 2 to 17 against influenza are being funded from within the UK Department of Health’s 2010 Spending Review settlement, with no additional allocation from HM Treasury. There are therefore no Barnett consequentials available.

The Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD) is a key national information source on the use of drugs in Scotland.

The purpose of the SDMD is to help us understand the needs of people with drug problems presenting for specialist treatment. It will help inform recovery plans and over time, enable us to understand more about people’s journey through treatment and the outcomes they achieve.

The system is not linked to data on child protection registers or the Scottish Women-Held Maternity Record.