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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring a culture of openness and transparency within our NHS services, which actively welcomes all forms of feedback as a tool for continuous improvement. We have therefore taken a number of actions to support NHS boards to encourage, handle and respond to feedback and complaints. The Scottish Government has:

Issued updated guidance Can I Help You? on handling and learning from feedback, comments, concerns or complaints about NHS services.

Provided funding for staff training, and to encourage and promote all forms of feedback, including complaints.

Established the independent Patient Advice and Support Service to advise and support people to provide feedback, make comments, raise concerns or make a complaint, and continued to fund the Scottish Mediation Network.

Following receipt of the first round of boards’ annual feedback and complaints reports, the Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Health Council’s Listening and Learning report published on 30 April 2014. The report’s recommendations have been accepted and are being actioned by boards.

At the latest NHS continuing healthcare census (March 2014) there were 385 category A patients in care homes and 12 category B patients. Costs are not collected centrally.

In announcing our acceptance of the recommendations of the Independent Review of NHS Continuing Healthcare on 8 May 2014, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing made it clear that anyone currently eligible would not be disadvantaged. It is anticipated that these patients will, subject to review, remain where they are currently being cared for and therefore not move home or to a hospital.

Forensic mental health assessments are carried out on patients in a variety of settings, for example as voluntary patients or by GPs, and this information would not be passed to the Scottish Government.

Since the State Hospital stopped admitting female patients in 2009, 21 female patients have been sent to England for treatment. Of these, only a very small number (actual number suppressed to protect patient confidentiality) were sent to a high-secure facility. This figure does not include those patients who were being repatriated to England.

Information on costs is held by each individual health board and is not provided to the Scottish Government as a matter of course.

NHS boards annual complaints and feedback reports for 2013-14 have been received by the Scottish Government and are publicly available on boards’ websites.

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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Patient Rights (Feedback, Comments, Concerns and Complaints) (Scotland) Directions 2012 came into force in April 2012. No directions have been issued to individual boards. A number of directions that all boards have to comply with were included in the updated Can I Help You? guidance which was issued to boards by the Scottish Government in March 2012.

The Scottish Government has provided funding since 2012-13 to support NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman to develop and deliver a suite of learning, education and workforce development opportunities for NHS staff and other NHS service providers, in order to equip them to respond effectively to feedback, comments, concerns and complaints in line with the requirements of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011. These include masterclasses, e-learning modules, workshops, a webinar, a leaflet and series of factsheets. The Scottish Government is also supporting the Person-Centered Health and Care Collaborative to spread best practice in person-centered care, with a focus on learning from all types of feedback.

The Patient Rights (Feedback, Comments, Concerns and Complaints) (Scotland) Directions 2012 require NHS boards to gather, review and report information on complaints from their own service and health service providers on a quarterly basis, with a view to identifying areas of concern and any actions that could be taken to improve services.

The directions also require boards to produce the annual reports outlined in the answer to question S4W-23317 on 3 December 2014.

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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Through The Patient Rights (Feedback, Comments, Concerns and Complaints) (Scotland) Directions 2012, the Scottish Government has required each relevant NHS body to publish annual reports which provide evidence that action has been taken, or is planned, as a result of feedback, comments, concerns and complaints. The reports are required to be sent to Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government issued additional guidance to NHS boards in May 2014, to assist them with their reports for 2013-14.

Roger Livermore has written to the Scottish Government several times regarding health and safety legislation in NHSScotland.

He has received five substantive replies and three more informing him that the Scottish Government had nothing further to add to previous responses.

Mr Livermore did not raise any new points in his letter of 14 September 2014 and a reply was sent to him informing him that any future correspondence sent on the same subject would be put on file with no response being issued.

If he raises new points, a substantive reply will be sent.