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The Scottish Government expects older people’s health or personal care needs to be clearly detailed within their care plans and, for them to be supported by appropriately trained staff, irrespective of whether they are at home or in a care home. The National Care Standards for Care at Home and Care Homes for Older People clearly set out the responsibilities of care providers and their duty to ensure that they have suitably qualified and appropriate numbers of staff to meet the health and welfare needs of their residents/clients.

Free Personal and Nursing Care was introduced in Scotland in July 2002. Schedule 1 of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 sets out that “where a person is fitted with a catheter or stoma, providing such assistance as is requisite to ensure cleanliness and that the skin is kept in a favourable hygiene condition, will not be charged for”.

The Scottish Government plans to exercise pandemic influenza arrangements in 2014-15. NHS boards have updated their pandemic influenza plans following the last pandemic, taking account of the lessons learned locally and the updated national guidance published subsequently. Such exercising will provide an opportunity to test the updated arrangements.

The pandemic influenza strategy and operational guidance set out an overarching approach to managing a pandemic and will not be directly affected by the changes to the police and fire service structures.

The updated pandemic influenza strategy and operational guidance focus on ensuring that the response to a pandemic is proportionate to meet the differing demands of pandemic influenza viruses, with further information to assist planners in considering the local response according to the stage and severity of any new pandemic.

The UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy was published in 2011 on behalf of the four UK countries.

The Scottish Government and the other Devolved Administrations worked with the UK Government to produce operational pandemic influenza guidance, which was made available to stakeholders in Scotland in 2012. A Scotland-specific version is currently being developed.

Whilst there is no current requirement for NHS boards to report on the provision of stoma care services as part of the Annual Review process, it is possible that this could be discussed at a board review; especially if it is a particular area of strength or challenge for the relevant board.

Under a Crop Health Advisory Activity, Scottish Government fund staff at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) to maintain an on-going campaign to promote the sustainable use of pesticides and alternative treatments in the husbandry of major arable crops. This advice aims to reduce the unnecessary use of pesticides with benefits for the environment and wildlife.

In practice, this means SRUC staff monitor representative commercial crops for pests and publish results in grower reports, inform arable consultants, update farmers at grower meetings and open days and on-line. Staff, then promote the use of alternative treatments and the use of pest thresholds before treatments are applied, and also coordinate information on pesticide resistance so that potentially ineffective sprays are avoided.

Only one diamide insecticide is currently approved for use on a limited number of crops in the UK. The future availability of other diamide compounds will be dependent on whether their use is authorised under the EU and UK pesticide approval process.

Further to the answer for question S4W-12436, three NHS boards were offered and accepted a programme of support for generic cancer waiting times performance.

All NHS boards were recently offered a share of £3.7 million specifically to increase short and medium term capacity for endoscopy (colonoscopy) services across Scotland and a total of twelve NHS boards requested and accepted this additional funding support.

Since Parliamentary Question S4W-12436 received a written answer on 6 February, ISD Scotland has published cancer waiting times performance for Q4 2012. During this period (October-December 2012), 95.8% of patients started treatment within 62 days of urgent referral with suspicion of cancer (improved from 94.0% in the previous quarter). Within the same period, 98.1% of patients started treatment within 31 days of decision to treat (regardless of the route of referral), up from 97.6% in Q3. For colorectal cancer specifically, Q4 performance was 94% for the 62-day standard and 97.2% for the 31-day standard.

The overall death certification process spans different sectors and organisations including the National Health Service Scotland, National Records Scotland and private funeral director businesses. It will also dovetail with new death certification systems being introduced elsewhere in the UK. Integrating the many IT systems, as well as ensuring every relevant individual has access to the necessary hardware, is a significant challenge and therefore remains an area for development in the future.

In the meantime, however, Scottish Government and the key implementing organisations are jointly liaising with each other and other key groups to ensure that the transfer of any necessary information can be carried out efficiently and securely.

The overall death certification process spans different sectors and organisations including the National Health Service Scotland, National Records Scotland and private funeral director businesses. It will also dovetail with new death certification systems being introduced elsewhere in the UK. Integrating the many IT systems, as well as ensuring every relevant individual has access to the necessary hardware is a significant challenge.

The new death certification system will strengthen quality assurance and improve the accuracy of the Medical Certificates of Cause of Death (Form 11). A key component of the Medical Reviewers’ role will therefore be to discuss, support and, when appropriate, explain the significance of achieving high levels of accuracy with certifying doctors.