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There is a statutory requirement on care service providers to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service, as are appropriate for the health and welfare of service users. The National Care Standards also require care home staff to have professional training and expertise which allows them to meet the needs of residents. Compliance with these requirements is part of the Care Inspectorate’s inspection process. The Care Inspectorate has a range of measures it can take to ensure that providers comply with requirements.

As a result of a Scottish Government-supported development project, conducted in partnership with NHS Information Services Division (ISD), COSLA, the Care Commission and with care home providers, a prototype model for informing care staff hours has been developed and tested in a number of care homes in Scotland. A report on the model was submitted to the COSLA-led Older People’s Services Development Group and practicable options for possible implementation are still under consideration by the group. On behalf of the group, the Joint Improvement Team is currently identifying what the options are for national implementation. The prototype model continues to be used in a small number of homes.

Staffing levels remain a decision for care home management with the model providing insights which can help managers make informed decisions about the staffing hours which will meet residents’ needs.

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), as the regulator of the social services workforce in Scotland maintains registers of specific groups of workers. A criterion of registration is that a worker has, or is working towards, a qualification that reflects the skill, knowledge and competence required for practice in each job function. Required registration with the SSSC was introduced in 2009. Managers in care home services have been subject to required registration since November 2009. Supervisors in care home services have been subject to required registration since March 2012. This year, practitioners working in care home services will be subject to required registration from 29 March 2013.

The Working Well Challenge Fund was available for two years; 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. The following table shows the amount awarded for each board in each of these years.

Over the past four years the Working Well policy has supported a mix of various NHSScotland board projects, including, during the first two years, projects funded through the Working Well Challenge Fund, and a programme of national led projects.

The concept of Working Well remains strong across boards and we are currently reviewing the Working Well policy to ensure that it meets current priorities.

Information regarding violence towards NHSScotland staff is not held centrally. Collection of information is a matter for individual NHSScotland boards.

Any alteration to the levels of violence against NHS staff will be the result of a number of factors and it is not possible to attribute any variation to the Working Well Challenge Fund.

Most higher education institutions in Scotland own resources for research computing. The trend until recently has largely been to purchase such resources at the departmental level, with specific research goals in mind, funded by research grants. These resources tend to be “compute clusters”, and are often designed for high-throughput computing, rather than for the massively parallel simulations which traditional supercomputers are designed for. They tend to lack the high-speed network interconnect between compute nodes which defines a supercomputer.

The overall speed of such a system is usually not measured due to the irrelevance of this number to the system – the system is not designed to work on a single problem at once. Also, the departmental nature of such systems means that they tend to be rather limited in size, and therefore theoretical peak performance.

Many companies, for instance in the oil and gas sector, are likely to own large systems for engineering simulations, however commercial interests mean that information on such systems is not publically available.

The use of graphics processing units (GPUs) to speed up calculations is still a limited area, and although their use is increasing, no major systems in Scotland make heavy use of GPUs. The performance numbers of any GPUs are therefore not considered in the answer given.

In the list provided we have concentrated on large systems for which information is publically available, and those which have been designed, either wholly or partly, for running parallel workloads.

Table 1 lists the major systems hosted in Scotland, hosted at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde. As mentioned above various smaller compute clusters are hosted by other Scottish universities, notably the University of Aberdeen, the University of Dundee, the University of Glasgow, Heriot Watt University, and the University of St Andrews. These are all smaller than the systems listed.

These systems are provided for the benefit of UK users, and therefore have users from many different academic institutions around the UK and beyond.

Sources:

https://safe.epcc.ed.ac.uk/diracwiki/index.php/Edinburgh_6144_node_BlueGene/Q

http://www.hector.ac.uk/

http://www.archie-west.ac.uk/

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/research-computing/ecdf/.

Information on the number of (a) counsellors, (b) psychotherapists and (c) cognitive behavioural therapists the NHS employs is as follows:

(a) The number of counsellors employed under the psychology budget in NHS Scotland can be found in the publication “Workforce Planning for Psychology Services in NHSScotland - Characteristics of the Workforce within Psychology Services 2012”: Table 1 or 1b. at the following link.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2012-11-27/2012-11-27-Psychology-Workforce-Tables.xls.

(b) Information on the number of psychotherapists employed in NHS Scotland is not centrally available. However, information on the number of psychotherapists who work within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service can be found at the following link in Table 1.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health%2DTopics/Workforce/Publications/2012-11-27/CAMHS_September2012.xls.

(c) The number of Cognitive Behavioural Therapists employed in NHS Scotland can be found in the publication “Workforce Planning for Psychology Services in NHSScotland - Characteristics of the Workforce within Psychology Services 2012”: Table 1 or 1b. at the following link.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2012-11-27/2012-11-27-Psychology-Workforce-Tables.xls.

The clinical standards for breast screening were last published on 1 October 2002. Five core standards were updated in 2008: lung, breast, ovarian, core and bowel. A Cancer Quality Performance Indicators Programme was developed following the publication of the core standards.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland is currently working with their partner organisations to review and update their work around national screening programmes, including screening for breast cancers. They are currently developing a governance mechanism for Cancer Quality Performance Indicators which will be piloted in March 2013. Findings from this pilot will further inform their national screening programme work.

The clinical standards for cervical screening were last published on 1 December 2001.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland is currently working with their partner organisations to review and update their work around national screening programmes, including screening for cervical cancers. They are currently developing a governance mechanism for Cancer Quality Performance Indicators which will be piloted in March 2013. Findings from this pilot will further inform their national screening programme work.

The Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Act 2007 places a duty on all education authorities and managers of grant-aided schools to endeavour to ensure that public schools and grant-aided schools are health promoting. The Act defines a health promoting school as one which provides activities and an environment and facilities which promote the physical, social, mental and emotional health and wellbeing of pupils in attendance at the school.

In addition, under Curriculum for Excellence, everyone within each learning community, whatever their contact with children and young people may be, shares a responsibility for creating a positive ethos and climate of trust, one in which everyone can make a positive contribution to the wellbeing of each individual within the school and wider community.

It is for each local authority and school to decide how best to meet their duties under the Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Act 2007 and to develop their own approaches to implement Curriculum for Excellence, based on local needs and circumstances. A number of authorities provide access to school based counselling in their schools. In other areas, schools utilise the skills of their pastoral care staff and liaise with health services for specialist support when required.