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The transition from the national “one size fits all” approach of eCare, to locally led initiatives, has resulted in the seven local authorities involved migrating on to a range of locally developed innovative solutions. These provide more extensive information sharing capabilities than was available previously.

The Health Informatics Research Advisory Group met for the first time on 23 January 2013. Its remit is to consider, what are the opportunities in Scotland:

To become world-leading in health and biomedical informatics research; to identify obstacles to the use of electronic health records for research in Scotland, and to develop solutions; to inform the development of the Scottish Government’s strategies for e-health and cross-sectoral data linkage; to advise the Chief Scientist Office on its strategy for supporting electronic health records research; to monitor developments in health informatics research infrastructure in the UK and internationally, and identify opportunities for Scottish involvement and to consider what investments would be most effective in enhancing Scotland’s capability for research using electronic health records.

The group’s membership includes experts in health informatics research from Scotland and elsewhere in the UK and the following officials: Mr Derek Feeley, Director General of the Health and Social Care Directorate, Dr Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician, Professor Andrew Morris, Chief Scientist, and Dr Peter Craig from the Chief Scientist Office. Advice from other experts will be sought as required.

Figures on drug treatment and testing orders commenced and the numbers terminated/completed by local authority and community justice authority area are available online at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/DTTOs.

Figures on DTTOs are compiled from returns from local authorities and do not relate directly to alcohol and drug partnership areas. However, the majority of alcohol and drug partnership areas are coterminous with local authority areas and figures for these areas can be derived from the published figures.

I have arranged for the information requested to be placed with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number: 54884).

Scottish Ministers have considered and accepted the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to extend the influenza vaccination programme to include children aged between two and 17 years. The vaccination of children with the attenuated live nasal influenza vaccine will be partially introduced from autumn 2013 and will be fully rolled out by the end of 2014-15.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) carried out a comprehensive review of the evidence associated with the introduction of the attenuated live nasal vaccine, Fluenz. This review considered the health burden of flu on the population, the impact and cost effectiveness, the efficacy and safety of the vaccine and public attitudes.

The biggest benefit will be protecting very young infants, older people and those in at risk groups such as those with asthma, multiple sclerosis or heart disease. Even with a moderate vaccination uptake there could be around a 40 per cent drop in the number of people affected. That would mean at least 11,000 fewer hospitalisations as a result of flu and around 2,000 fewer deaths a year. Fluenz has been available for around a decade in America and has an excellent safety profile. As with all medicines, the safety of the flu vaccine will be monitored by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), a government agency responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work are acceptably safe.

The Scottish Government recognises that vaccinations, as with all medicines, may carry a risk of side-effects. However, these side-effects are generally uncommon and are out-weighed by the very real benefits to the vast majority of people vaccinated. The flu vaccine contains live, but weakened, forms of flu virus which do not cause flu in those vaccinated. The most common side effect of vaccination is a runny nose for a short time.

There are around 860,000 children in Scotland in this age group and most will be offered Fluenz. However, it is not suitable for a small number of children who have certain conditions (such as conditions that can weaken their immune system or having a severe egg allergy). These children will be offered alternative flu vaccines.

It has been estimated that there are between 700 and 900 pregnancies affected by neural tube defects (NTD) each year in the UK. Modelling work by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) showed that, across the UK, between 77 and 162 NTD-affected pregnancies could be prevented annually if mandatory fortification of flour were to be introduced at a level of 300µg of folic acid per 100g flour (excluding wholemeal). These estimates assume that no other foods are fortified voluntarily. SACN’s full report “Folate and Disease Prevention” is available online at:

http://www.sacn.gov.uk/pdfs/folate_and_disease_prevention_report.pdf.

The Scottish Government is considering the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid with the other UK administrations.

Doctors in training at levels ST (a) 1 to 6, (b) 7 and (c) 8 are broadly distributed amongst NHS Boards on the basis of population in the 4 NES Deaneries. The current allocation of trainees across the 4 Deaneries is roughly in the proportions of 50% West, 25% South East, 15% North and 10% East. The distribution does not take into account the number of doctors in Foundation Years 1 and 2.

This overall pattern of distribution of trainees will vary within different specialties, and at different stages and levels of training, reflecting the distribution of training opportunities, and the varying time taken by trainees to complete training.

The Scottish Government has only been in regular contact with NHS Highland regarding high levels of surgical and medical readmissions reported by the board’s Belford Hospital site over the last 2 years.

The board’s re-admission rates were being artificially inflated by day attenders, returning to Belford Hospital’s Combined Assessment Unit (CAU) for review within 28 days. This increase was attributed to the Board’s coding processes around readmissions, as internal audits of CAU performance did not highlight an increase in the genuine rate of re-admissions.

The Scottish Government has been working with the board and Information Services Division (ISD) to improve the accuracy of coding processes around readmissions.

Together with other funders, the Scottish Government contributed £500,000 towards the Insect Pollinators Initiative (IPI).

The IPI supports nine research projects to help identify the main threats to bees and other insect pollinators and gain a better understanding of the complex relationships between biological and environmental factors which affect the health and lifespan of pollinators.