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The General Medical Council (GMC) is the regulatory body for doctors in the UK and its purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine. All doctors have to be registered by the GMC to practise and the GMC has powers to take action on serious concerns which call into question a doctor’s fitness to practise.

Individual GP practices are also responsible for the provision of the premises from which they operate and directly accountable to their contracting health board for the services they provide. This includes ensuring their premises are suitable for the delivery of their services, including cleanliness, and sufficient to meet the needs of their patients. GP contractors must also co-operate fully with any reasonable inspection or review that the health board or another relevant statutory authority wishes to undertake, that may include random visits.

Information Services Division (ISD) produces quarterly hospital standardised mortality ratios (HSMR) for all Scottish hospitals participating in the Scottish Patient Safety Programme. HSMR are provided to enable these acute hospitals and the Scottish Government to monitor their progress on reducing hospital mortality over time.

HSMR takes account of patients who died within 30 days from hospital admission. This means that the HSMR includes deaths that occurred in the community where this is within the thirty day period. The current HSMR model was developed following testing work undertaken in 2008 by ISD. Various approaches were examined but the current model was found to best explain variations in hospital mortality in Scotland.

The lower age range for women being invited to participate in the Scottish Cervical Screening Programme is 20 years old. The upper age range is 60 years.

This eligible age range for women to be invited to cervical screening in Scotland has not changed since the cervical screening programme began in 1988.

In January 2011 the Breast and Cervical Screening National Advisory Group (NAG) established the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Reference Group to review the evidence and make recommendations regarding incorporating further HPV testing into the Scottish Cervical Screening Programme.

The HPV Reference Group submitted their report to the NAG in July 2013, recommending that HPV as a primary test should be introduced in the Scottish Cervical Screening Programme (SCSP).

Following the recommendations of the HPV reference group, a short life working group is currently being established to develop a full business case for the introduction of HPV testing as a primary test to the SCSP. This business case will inform the Scottish Government’s decisions on whether to introduce HPV testing.

All women in Scotland aged 20-60 are invited to cervical screening every three years, regardless of their smear history or menopausal status.

The eligible age range for cervical screening in Scotland has not changed since the national programme was introduced in 1988. All women aged 20-60 years old are invited to cervical screening every three years as part of the Scottish cervical screening programme.

However, the age range for cervical screening is due to change from 20-60 to 25-64. This is planned to take effect by the end of 2015.

Consideration was given to amending the Scottish Quality and Outcomes Framework (SQOF) for 2013-14 with a decision taken to change SQOF in line with the age range implementation date of 2015.

Managing Health at Work, all NHSScotland boards require to have local policies that deal positively with stress at work

These policies require measures to be in place to provide both managers and staff with appropriate guidance and training to identify and deal with stress and its causes.

There are currently no plans to provide funding for a single national system that will allow NHS staff to reflect on stresses at work. It is for each board to develop a policy to meet specific local needs.

This Government has made clear its concerns of the negative impact on those who will lose out in the face of the Westminster Government’s welfare reform programme.

We know that those dependent on welfare benefits are at risk of poorer health outcomes associated with poverty and that changes to benefits risk increasing both short and long term inequalities in health outcomes. While it is too early to quantify the outcomes especially as we are still awaiting the finalisation of this reform programme, we are already seeing an increase in demand on primary care from those losing benefits as claimants seek advice and evidence for appeals.

The government has instigated a proactive response in which we are working with partners in local government, health and the third sector to mitigate the worst impacts of the reforms on people and organisations in Scotland. Our draft budget has allocated an investment of at least £224 million in welfare mitigation over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16. Through the Scottish Public Health Observatory we have established a monitoring programme to measure the impacts on public health of welfare reform and austerity.

The Government’s active response to Health Inequalities is clearly set out in the three jointly linked social policy frameworks of Equally Well, the Early Years Framework and Achieving Our Potential. The first of which is currently under review through the Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities.