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There are 47 GP practices run directly by health boards, making up a small percentage of the 987 practices across Scotland. Of these one is closed to new patient registrations and two have restrictions on new patient registrations.

NHS boards work with GP practices to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to GP services.

The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on how many NHS staff have been disciplined as a result of inappropriate access to information. Boards are however obliged to report significant information security incidents to the Scottish Government, and these could relate to personnel breaching patient or employee confidentiality. Since August 2014 there have been no such cases reported.

It is the role of the Scottish Government to provide policies, frameworks and resources to NHS boards so they can deliver services that meet the needs of their local populations. Within this context, the actual provision of healthcare services is the responsibility of local NHS boards, taking into account national guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment.

The boards outlined in the following table have implemented the single sign-on and password reset system. Details of users, the number of applications involved and the number of single sign on accesses over a seven day period are also provided. Over 60,000 workstations (desktop and laptop computers) have had the enhanced functionality provided by single sign-on, including fast user switching, multiple user sessions and two factor authentication.

National systems and services such as Trakcare, Carestream PACS, SCI store and Clinical portal are profiled at the outset for single sign on. Following on from that other high usage applications and service are identified. Details of all specific applications and services covered on a board by board basis are not held centrally.

Information on return appointments is not collected centrally. Each patient may require a different timescale for follow up appointments, as clinically determined. We do, however, expect patients to be seen within the most appropriate timescale for their condition following a clinical assessment.

A privacy breach detection system is operational in all territorial boards. This is on top of the usual audit trails running on key clinical systems. Patients can ask for reassurance as to who is accessing their data (and why) and there are many ways in which this information can be provided. Simply providing raw audit trails would not on its own satisfy this requirement. Under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 anyone has the right to ask for a copy of their personal health information.

The delivery of the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource is being led by NHS National Services Scotland, with oversight of a project board comprising key stakeholder groups, including the Scottish Government, NHS boards, GPs (including the Royal College of General Practitioners and Scottish General Practitioners Committee) and patients. The deployment of software to practices is underway and currently planned to complete by end January 2017, on budget.

Portal access is shared between some NHS boards where patients may be commonly referred across those NHS board boundaries for treatment. The Scottish Government is promoting regional working in eHealth, and a key aspect of this is to create interoperable links between the NHS boards in the regions (West of Scotland, South and East of Scotland and North of Scotland) to enhance cross-boundary access.

Nevertheless, outside clinical portals, there are a variety of clinical systems which can be accessed by clinicians across Scotland including the Picture Archiving and Communication System, the Emergency Care Summary, the Key Information Summary and the SCI Store system providing access to electronic records if this is necessary.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-30432 on 21 March 2016. 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.

Distinction awards in Scotland are monitored on the basis of A+, A and B Awards.

The answers are given in the following table:

Information supplied by the Scottish Advisory Council on Distinction Awards using material provided in its annual reports.