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For the purposes of section 227V(6)(a) and (b) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, it will be for the court to satisfy themselves that an individual has an alcohol dependency. Before imposing a community payback order, the court must take account of a report provided by a local authority officer, which contains information about the offender and the offender''s circumstances. Where appropriate, report writers will seek input from treatment services or clinicians.

Professionals involved in assessing an individual''s alcohol problem will be informed by the World Health Organization''s (WHO) clinical definition of dependency i.e. an individual having three or more of a range of symptoms including; tolerance; alcohol withdrawal, craving, persistence of drinking despite negative consequences and can draw upon a range of well-established screening tools.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 17 March 2010. The policy content of the Bill is set out in the Policy Memorandum. The Bill is now going through the parliamentary process and its final shape will be a matter for the Parliament.

The Scottish Government will receive consequentials on the full NHS (health) settlement in England, and these consequentials will be passed on in Scotland.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 17 March 2010. The policy content of the Bill is set out in the Policy Memorandum. The Bill is now going through the parliamentary process and its final shape will be a matter for the Parliament.

Whilst a patient is asked to provide informed consent for the sharing of relevant data between the community pharmacist and their GP when registering for the chronic medication service (CMS), CMS does not allow pharmacists to access GP held patient records. Electronic CMS data on prescribing, dispensing and reimbursement is accessible to the same NHS professionals who had access to such data derived from paper prescriptions.

The information requested on how many people were registered as blind is given in table 1a of Registered Blind and Partially Sighted Persons, Scotland 2010, published by the Scottish Government on 26 October 2010. The publication is web only and can be accessed at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/10/26094945/0

The data is only available by local authority area and does not identify glaucoma sufferers. A full record of the number of glaucoma diagnoses is not held centrally.

The Chronic Medication Service does not currently require the use of read codes. It remains a matter of the clinical judgement of a GP, in consultation with the patient, on whether they wish to share read codes with pharmacists.

The Scottish Government will give due consideration to the Department of Health''s cancer drugs fund consultation findings once they are published.

Scotland has robust, equitable and transparent arrangements for the introduction of newly licensed clinically and cost-effective medicines to treat all conditions. These arrangements include opportunities at national level to consider additional factors to facilitate, in certain circumstances, a flexible appraisal of clinical and cost-effective evidence. They also include opportunities at local level for clinically led consideration of medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-36923 on 9 November 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-36918 on 9 November 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.