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The Care Inspectorate, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, operates a formal complaints procedure for anyone who is unhappy about a registered care service. This procedure explains people's right to receipt of high quality services and what steps they can take if they feel this is not being met. Details of how people can register a complaint is well publicised on the Care Inspectorate's website.http://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/82/Procedure%20for%20handling%20complaints%20-%20Jul%2014.pdf

Additionally National Care Standards stipulate that service providers must make available to service users and their families details of their complaint handling procedures. This information is provided to everyone receiving a registered care service and ensures they are fully familiar with their rights and expectations from the outset.

Together these easily accessible information ensures service users are made aware of what to do should they wish to complain about a care service, or challenge the findings of any such investigations.

All health professionals are expected to demonstrate through both work based learning and self-directed learning, the knowledge and skills in end of life care to satisfy the core competencies of their profession.

The requirements and content of training curricula is a matter for the Royal Colleges and is approved by the General Medical Council as regulator of the medical profession.

All Healthcare professionals including mental health practitioners are expected to assess and address their learning needs to deliver the high quality services required by their local population; this includes end of life/palliative considerations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-03333 on 27 October 2016. 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.

As previously advised in that answer, the service is expected to be up and running by Spring 2017. I can confirm that the recruitment process for the specialist clinical posts, including relevant neurosurgeons, is currently underway, as is equipment procurement.

I can also confirm that, pending the start of the new service, we continue to ensure that everyone in Scotland who is considered clinically suitable for Deep Brain Stimulation has access to it.

Opt-out blood borne virus testing for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV is available for all new prisoners at HMP Castle Huntly, Cornton Vale, Glenochil, Grampian, Kilmarnock, Perth, Polmont and Shotts, while Barlinne, Greenock and Low Moss have an opt-out approach for Hepatitis C and HIV. We are working with NHS boards to deliver the service in the remaining prisons.

The NDIP 2016 Report shows a reduction in oral health inequalities in primary 1 children across a range of inequality measures.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to tackle oral health inequalities in children. This is why in the recently published Fairer Scotland Action Plan, we have included a commitment to extend supervised toothbrushing and fluoride varnish application for nursery and primary 1 and 2 children in even more comparatively deprived communities. Currently this preventive treatment is available under our flagship Childsmile programme to the 20 per cent most deprived communities within each NHS Board area. This will now be extended to those communities who fall within the most 20 per cent deprived measured on a Scotland-wide basis.

Each of the Health and Social Care Partnerships will publish an annual Performance Report for 2016-17 by the end of July 2017. These reports will set out an assessment of performance in relation to the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes, which focus on the experiences and quality of services for people using those services, carers and their families. The Scottish Government will work closely with Partnerships to learn from the findings of these reports and how this can be shared more widely.

Through the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus networks, the Scottish Government has regular discussions with Health Protection Scotland, NHS boards and Hepatitis Scotland to help promote best practice and information sharing in relation to identifying people who remain undiagnosed.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the services, support and care available to people with hearing loss through its long term strategy ‘See Hear’. Awareness raising and training were identified as one of the recommendations in the strategy. The strategy was jointly endorsed by COSLA and is being implemented through local partnerships. Local leads have been identified to drive progress across priority areas.

Health Protection Scotland collects data on Hepatitis C tests from the West of Scotland Specialist Virology Centre, East of Scotland Specialist Virology Centre, Department of Medical Microbiology at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. These specialist laboratories receive positive samples from the 14 Hepatitis C testing laboratories in Scotland in order to carry out PCR testing for confirmation. Negative tests are generally not sent to these specialist laboratories. Therefore, for accuracy, the testing database only includes tests from Boards where there is complete data (negative and positive samples). This means that Hepatitis C test data is only available for prisons within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Grampian, Lothian and Tayside board areas. Between 2013-2015, 3,964 people were tested for hepatitis C antibody in the prison setting in these four board areas.

No assessment has been made by the Scottish Government on the likely growth in demand for supported accommodation. The UK Government has undertaken a substantial body of research on the provision of supported accommodation across Great Britain which we understand will shortly be published along with a consultation paper. When it is published we will consider this research carefully, and consider whether the Scottish Government needs to undertake further research or analysis.

Local authorities are required by law to prepare a local housing strategy (LHS) supported by an assessment of housing need and demand. SG guidance on the LHS http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00458185.pdf notes that the strategy has to clearly set out: the current need for specialist provision (accommodation and care/support services) that will help to support people to live independently; the likely requirement for this provision over the next 5 years; how current needs are being met using a range of accommodation types and what more is planned to meet future need.