Seòmar agus comataidhean

Between July 2018 and February 2019, 344 women from the Moray area gave birth at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and 23 women gave birth at Raigmore Hospital, compared to 215 births at Dr Grays Hospital.

Between July 2018 and January 2019, 98 pregnant women were transferred by ambulance to Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and 21 to Raigmore, this includes pregnant women who were transferred for other complications (not intrapartum).

Around 10,000 people under the age of 65 received personal care prior to April 2019. Around a third already received personal care free due to their incomes falling below the thresholds at which local authorities begin to charge. Now everyone under 65 who needs personal care will receive it free.

We estimate up to 3,000 people under 65 who currently do not receive personal care could come forward following the extension.

The impact that free personal care may make to a person’s social care charges will depend on each individual’s care package, means and local authority charging policy. If personal care is part of that package, the individual will receive this element free.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to introduce a sunshine act.

Following the Scottish Parliament’s closure of Petition PE01493 in March 2016, the Scottish Government scoped out a range of options to consider what appropriate actions may be possible, whilst ensuring that any realistic options would require to be proportionate and respectful of NHS resources.

On 19 March 2018 a joint letter was issued by Scottish Government senior health professionals (Chief Medical Officer, Chief Pharmaceutical officer, Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Dental Officer and Chief Health Professions Officer) to all appropriate Scottish healthcare professionals to support and encourage the adoption of the principles within a UK-wide joint statement published by the Chief Executives of statutory regulators of health and care professionals. This action was taken to raise awareness of the way in which our health professionals should be managing competing interests, as well as promoting the existing emphasis on openness and avoiding inappropriate influence.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-22189 on 27 March 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

In respect of baseline funding, individual health boards take decisions on allocation taking in to account local population needs and spending priorities.

From this Boards work on a range of initiatives which can be delivered by third sector organisations focussed on health issues which specifically affect women such as breast and cervical screening provision and which may also seek to target women in particular areas of deprivation or vulnerability. To date the Scottish Government have committed over £2.7 million to target reducing inequalities in the reach and uptake of these programmes. In 2019-2020 in addition to the specialist endometriosis centre opening in Glasgow we will be investing £15,000 in work with Endometriosis UK to devise training so more women can benefit from peer support for this condition in Scotland.

We are continuing to work with NHS Boards about the actions they are taking to improve performance, supported by record investment and our reform programme. Last year we launched our Waiting Times Improvement Plan, backed with more than £850 million of funding and identified chronic pain as one of eight specialties to be targeted for improvement. In addition, the Scottish Access Collaborative Programme will shortly publish its report on chronic pain services that will inform actions to be taken forward through the Modern Outpatient Programme during 2019-20.

We have also funded essential work at the University of Dundee to improve the breadth, consistency and quality of chronic pain data available. This work will help to develop the necessary high-quality data required to drive improvements to services and reduce waiting times.

Marketing expenditure by the Scottish Government focussing on specific areas of women’s health in recent years, and the associated spend, have included:

Breast Cancer/Screening

• 2014-2015: £109,896
• 2015-2016: £2,732
• 2016-2017: £988
• 2017-2018: £2,233
• 2018-2019: £129

Cervical Cancer

• 2014-2015: No activity
• 2015-2016: No activity
• 2016-2017: £30,758 (this campaign was jointly funded with NHS Health Scotland during this financial year. The quoted figure relates to Scottish Government expenditure)
• 2017-2018: £50,000
• 2018-2019: £79,413

Please note that other campaigns have a partial or indirect impact on women’s health:

Breastfeeding:

• 2014-2015: £24,857
• 2015-2016: £152,910

Detect Cancer Early (inclusive of the spending on Breast Cancer/Screening/Cervical Cancer):

• 2014-2015: £807,980
• 2015-2016: £450,899
• 2016-2017: £449,881
• 2017-2018: £421,262
• 2018-2019: £450,000
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Scotland has led the UK by setting a minimum standard for hospital food. The catering service in every Board must comply with National Food Safety Standards and the Food in Hospitals specification (the National Catering and Nutrition Specification for Food and Fluid Provision in Hospitals in Scotland, first published in 2008) with regards to the quality of their patient catering service.

All NHS boards are required to meet and monitor performance against these standards – which includes seeking and taking in to account patient feedback. Additionally, from this April, all NHS boards will be required to set out the steps they are taking to achieve compliance with these food standards, by providing documented evidence to support their views.

We know that before 12 weeks, one in 5 pregnancies ends in miscarriage and that most of these are due to chromosomal abnormalities which cannot be prevented.

Recurrent miscarriage (defined as three or more miscarriages) happens to one in every hundred women and the chance of finding a cause which can be treated is much higher. The balance is in not exposing a lot of women to unnecessary tests but to identifying women where problems which can be treated are more likely to be picked up.

We are open to new findings through research which can help us understand further the causes and potential treatment of miscarriage.

Our Count14 campaign, launched on 11 March, is running for three weeks across TV, print, radio and digital platforms, to raise awareness of the UK Chief Medical Officers’ lower risk maximum drinking guidelines of 14 units of alcohol per week. This first phase of awareness raising work will be followed by further activity in 2019.

Our messaging has been developed to clearly demonstrate what 14 units means in terms of common alcoholic drinks, and to encourage people to think about how their weekly drinking adds up. It also highlights that if you regularly drink around 14 units per week, it’s best to spread these units over three days or more, with some alcohol free days in between. Drinking within the guidelines keeps our risk of certain diseases, including bowel, breast and mouth cancer, low.

The campaign webpage is available at count14.scot .

The campaign is taking place under Action 14 of the new Alcohol Framework, launched in 2018 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/alcohol-framework-2018-preventing-harm-next-steps-changing-relationship-alcohol ). I welcome the cross-party support for the Framework as a whole, and for this Action in particular.