Chamber and committees

Principles deriving from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union require that all public bodies treat all suppliers bidding for public contracts equally and without discrimination, including on the basis of size. It is for bidders to determine how best they will offer to deliver a contract and public bodies cannot, in normal circumstances, within invitations to tender specify that the successful bidder must sub-contract to a third party.

The following number of practices are closed to new patient registrations in each NHS board:

NHS Board	Closed to new patient registrations
Ayrshire and Arran	0
Borders	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0
Fife	0
Forth Valley	0
Grampian	0
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1*
Highland	0
Lanarkshire	2
Lothian	0
Orkney	0
Shetland	0
Tayside	7
Western Isles	0
Total	10

Circumstances will arise where a practice experiences capacity issues and is unable to routinely accept new patients onto its list. We expect health boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage the situation and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

*Due to open 16 June 2016

The following number of practices have introduced restrictions on new patients registering other than for geographical reasons in each NHS board.

NHS Board	Restrictions other than for geographical reasons on new patient registration
Ayrshire and Arran	0
Borders	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0
Fife	10*
Forth Valley	0**
Grampian	3*
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	0
Highland	0
Lanarkshire	0
Lothian	33
Orkney	0
Shetland	0
Tayside	0
Western Isles	0
Total	46

Circumstances will arise where a practice experiences capacity issues and is unable to routinely accept new patients onto its list. We expect health boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage the situation and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

*Open but full.

**Occasionally NHS Forth Valley practices may, for a period of time, only routinely accept patients with family members already registered with the practice, however they would always continue to accept any new patients assigned to the practice by Practitioner Services Division.

As part of the Scottish Government's on-going monitoring of the use of unavailability it became clear that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's use of social unavailability was higher than other health boards.

The board’s local policy had been to apply unavailability to patients not wishing to travel to alternative places for treatment such that patients do not start their waiting time all over again. It was NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's view that some patients may come from some of the most vulnerable part of society and therefore resetting or referring back to their GP may not be in the best interest of the patient. The board has now been advised their local operating policy must be fully compliant by 1 April 2016.

Hospital at Night is a clinical system used in a number of NHS boards to ensure that high quality consistent care is provided to hospital inpatients overnight, and that staff working in the out of hours period do so under direct senior supervision. It is also an example of strong multidisciplinary working, involving a team of junior doctors, nurses and allied health professionals working under the supervision of a senior nurse and senior doctor. Tasks and duties are co-ordinated through the team leader who ensures that the right person with the right skills is deployed to carry out the relevant clinical task. There has been no national evaluation of Hospital at Night, but boards continue to evaluate their clinical care systems to ensure they are delivering high quality care.

As regulator of the medical profession in the UK, the General Medical Council (GMC) is responsible for monitoring the quality of medical training provided, and to decide where improvement actions need to be taken. This quality assurance role is conducted in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland (NES).

Details of hospitals, specialties and dates being monitored can be found on the GMC website.

We have consistently said that we are clear on the need to reform the distinction awards scheme. The future of these awards will form part of the Scottish Government’s consideration of service redesign and overall remuneration, going forward.

The opinion of the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland and Northern Ireland was not sought before data sets were issued for collecting information on individual patients in relation to (a) community nursing and (b) community mental health services.

National Services Scotland does not routinely seek the opinion of The Information Commissioner’s Office before establishing a new data collection from NHS Scotland boards, unless the nature of the collection is substantially different from that in existing collections. The privacy impact assessment is used to indicate when wider consultation is required.

The Community Health Activity Data project collects data on individuals being seen within community health services. To date, data submissions relate to district nursing activity only, and Community Health Index has been missing from only 0.08% of submissions.

NHS boards are responsible for ensuring they have the correct numbers and skill mix to meet the needs of all children and adolescents.

The Scottish Government has invested £16.3 million over the last six years to increase the number of psychologists working in specialist child and adolescent mental health services, with a further £3.5 million committed in 2015-16.

In addition the First Minister announced a £54.1 million package of support to improve access to mental health services for adults and children on 12 January 2016. This investment includes £24.7 million to improve capacity to see more people more quickly, £4.8 million through Healthcare Improvement Scotland to help redesign local services to be more efficient, effective and sustainable and £24.6 million to improve workforce supply and train existing staff to deliver services for children and young people, as well as psychological therapies for all ages.