- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 21 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support the use of Internet Protocol version 6 in the (a) public and (b) private sector.
Answer
Scottish Government is in the process of procuring a public sector wide broadband services contract. Referred to as the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) programme it will be a “dual stacked” communications system. This means that as SWAN delivers network services, it will be able to support applications which use either IPv4 or IPv6 addressing concurrently. When considering new services and applications, the ability to provide a migration path from IPv4 to IPv6 or go straight to IPv6 is an important consideration.
The Scottish Government is currently not involved in taking steps to support the use of Internet Protocol version 6 in the private sector.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 21 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the practice by NHS boards to print off every email that is regarded as important.
Answer
NHSScotland is committed in its eHealth Strategy to a “paper-light” approach to information and records management and in time to eliminate paper based exchanges between care providers.
The preference is for email to be managed digitally while it is in the mailbox and digitally when it is moved out of the mailbox and into the corporate or clinical records system. However, there are particular business transactions where this is not practical and printing is the only option. Record managers in each board provide advice in such circumstances.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2012
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 10 January 2013
To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing last met the chief executive officers of NHS boards.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 10 January 2013
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 December 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 18 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government how many patients were removed from the cancer waiting time targets due to death in each of the last two years and how many of those were beyond the 62-day target.
Answer
The number of patients who died before treatment and were therefore excluded from the cancer access targets in 2010 was 241 and in 2011 was 259 representing 1.2% of the total number of patients in the targets in each year.
There are no centrally held data on whether death occurred before or beyond the target treatment date nor on the cause of death, which may have been unrelated to the cancer.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 17 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government how many doctors in forensic paediatrics at levels (a) ST6, (b) ST7 and (c) ST8 there (a) were in 2010-11 and (b) are currently.
Answer
The specific information requested is not available centrally.
Furthermore, “forensic paediatrics” is not a recognised sub-specialty training programme within the current educational training programme. Those wishing to specialise in forensic paediatrics will usually train in community child health, which includes training in child protection and which may include an element of specialist training in forensic paediatrics. Others will train in general paediatrics.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on whether the remit of the Health Research Authority of the NHS in the rest of the UK to improve the speed at which health research is approved will be beneficial to researchers in Scotland.
Answer
The Health Research Authority (HRA) is a NHS organisation established as a Special Health Authority to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public in health research in England.
Scotland has a very efficient NHS research approval systems, and the Scottish Government's Chief Scientist Office is a member of the HRA Collaboration and Development Steering Group, that was established to lead on projects for improvement in the research journey.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what methodology the Scottish Medicines Consortium uses to factor modifiers into its appraisal process.
Answer
The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has developed modifiers which allow greater flexibility in its decision making to allow consideration of additional factors in certain circumstances when the pharmaceutical company has submitted a robust case. These may allow the SMC to accept either more uncertainty in the health economic case or a higher cost per quality adjusted life year.
Further information on how these might apply in the SMC appraisal process is set out on the SMC website. A link is attached:
http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/About_SMC/Policy_Statements/SMC_Modifiersused_in_Appraising_New_Medicines
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government how many students enrolling at each university nursing school in each of the last five years were from (a) Scotland, (b) the rest of the UK, (c) the rest of the EU and (d) non-EU countries.
Answer
The numbers of students enrolling at each university nursing school in each of the last five years that were from (a) Scotland, (b) the rest of the UK, (c) the rest of the EU and (d) non-EU countries are detailed in the following tables:
2007
| HEI | | Rest of EU | Non-EU | Rest of UK | Scotland | Total | |
| Napier | 19 | 23 | 64 | 366 | 472 |
| GCU | 6 | 15 | 37 | 411 | 469 |
| RGU | 9 | 11 | 22 | 231 | 273 |
| Dundee | 12 | 8 | 49 | 402 | 471 |
| Stirling | 9 | 14 | 42 | 269 | 334 |
| UWS | 8 | 14 | 47 | 778 | 847 |
| Total | 63 | 85 | 261 | 2,457 | 2,866 |
2008
| HEI | | Rest of EU | Non-EU | Rest of UK | Scotland | Total | |
| Napier | 18 | 29 | 56 | 388 | 491 |
| GCU | 5 | 27 | 28 | 464 | 524 |
| RGU | 1 | 11 | 27 | 199 | 238 |
| Dundee | 7 | 6 | 40 | 369 | 422 |
| Stirling | 4 | 13 | 33 | 293 | 343 |
| UWS | 5 | 12 | 64 | 708 | 789 |
| Total | 40 | 98 | 248 | 2,421 | 2,807 |
2009
| HEI | | Rest of EU | Non-EU | Rest of UK | Scotland | Total | |
| Napier | 32 | 28 | 79 | 421 | 560 |
| GCU | 6 | 27 | 21 | 508 | 562 |
| RGU | 7 | 10 | 23 | 222 | 262 |
| Dundee | 14 | 14 | 34 | 368 | 430 |
| Stirling | 8 | 21 | 31 | 308 | 368 |
| UWS | 12 | 16 | 50 | 709 | 787 |
| Total | 79 | 116 | 238 | 2,536 | 2,969 |
2010
| HEI | | Rest of EU | Non-EU | Rest of UK | Scotland | Total | |
| Napier | 35 | 33 | 78 | 386 | 532 |
| GCU | 14 | 36 | 29 | 454 | 533 |
| RGU | 18 | 9 | 24 | 242 | 293 |
| Dundee | 19 | 9 | 45 | 337 | 410 |
| Stirling | 15 | 18 | 12 | 337 | 382 |
| UWS | 13 | 8 | 6 | 735 | 762 |
| Total | 114 | 113 | 194 | 2,491 | 2,912 |
2011
| HEI | | Rest of EU | Non-EU | Rest of UK | Scotland | Total | |
| Napier | 33 | 43 | 66 | 359 | 501 |
| GCU | 12 | 21 | 27 | 376 | 436 |
| RGU | 9 | 9 | 21 | 235 | 274 |
| Dundee | 17 | 15 | 52 | 294 | 378 |
| Stirling | 9 | 19 | 17 | 256 | 301 |
| UWS | 6 | 10 | 2 | 654 | 672 |
| Total | 86 | 117 | 185 | 2174 | 2562 |
Source: Data from NHS Education for Scotland.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what cost per quality-adjusted life year the Scottish Medicines Consortium considers acceptable.
Answer
The SMC published a policy statement which clarified how it uses a tool called the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) as part of its decision-making as to whether or not a medicine is value for money for the NHS in Scotland.
The QALY is not the only criteria for decision-making. QALYs are an important tool in assessing the benefits of a medicine but the decision on whether to accept a medicine for use is a wider judgment on its clinical and cost-effectiveness. A link to the statement on the SMC website is attached:
http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/About_SMC/Policy_Statements/A_Guide_to_Quality_Adjusted_Life_Years.
- Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 December 2012
To ask the Scottish Government what methodology the Scottish Medicines Consortium uses to factor the views of (a) the Patient and Public Involvement Group and (b) patients' interest groups into its appraisal process.
Answer
The Patient and Public Involvement Group (PAPIG) has three public partners who are members of the Scottish Medicines Consortium and contribute to the decision making. Where there are Patient Interest Group submissions for medicines under assessment, these are included in the meeting papers sent to all members and one of the public partners presents a summary of the Patient Interest Group submissions verbally to the committee at the monthly SMC meeting. Further information on these arrangements are set out on the SMC website. A link is attached:
http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/Public_Involvement/SMC_Explained/Further_Reading.
The SMC website provides information on how patient interest groups can participate in the SMC appraisal arrangements. A link is attached:
http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/Public_Involvement/Template_and_Guidance_Documents.
