Scottish Parliament e-Brief, Issue 250

IN COMMITTEE
This week’s likely highlights in the Committee Corridors include:

Hospital reviews to be held in public for first time
The Golden Jubilee National Hospital, bought by the Executive for NHSScotland in 2002 for £37.5 million, today undergoes its annual review as the first hospital to have its performance reviewed in public by Health Minister, Andy Kerr.

The Minister is going to each of the 15 area-based health boards and seven special health boards to challenge chairs, chief executives and directors about how well their organisations have delivered over the last year.

It was announced last month that the Golden Jubilee had carried out 18,509 procedures over the twelve months ending in March 2005, beating its target of 18,362, showing an increase of almost 42%. The Hospital also carried out 1,535 orthopaedic procedures in 2004-05 - a 26% increase on the previous year. It now has 100 beds, a new catheterisation lab, state-of-the-art orthopaedic theatres which are among the most modern in Britain and a brand new MRI scanning suite.

In December 2004, in Fair to All, Personal to Each, Mr Kerr announced a package of reforms and new targets to eliminate long waits for good. A key part of this was to expand the Golden Jubilee National Hospital to make full use of all available clinical space - and 28,000 annual procedures by 2007/08. Plans have been drawn up for a cardio-thoracic service based at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital to serve the whole of the West of Scotland. Consultation on this has just finished and a report will be submitted to the Minister shortly.

Men's Health Week
Scotland's men were today reminded of the need to stay healthy and active as summer approaches.

Speaking at the beginning of Men's Health Week, Health Minister Andy Kerr said:

"It's been a well-known fact for some time that, for a number of reasons, Scotland's men are much more reluctant than women to go to the doctor for regular check ups."

He continued:

"If [men] don't start taking an interest in their lifestyle and wellbeing they could be causing real problems for themselves both now and in later life.

"In the last few years we have announced considerable investment into men's health and wellbeing, based around a series of Well Men initiatives around the country. We're starting to see some results with clinics proving popular and providing helpful advice and information."

Research has shown that men are less likely than women to go to their GPs. In the 12 months ending in March 2003, 68% of males, and 84% of females had contact with their GP. (Source: Sample of CMR (Continuous Morbidity Recording) GP practices). In 2002, coronary heart disease (CHD) accounted for 22% of deaths in Scottish men and 18% of deaths in women. The Executive target is to reduce the number of premature deaths from CHD for men and women by 50% between 1995 and 2010.

WEDNESDAY begins with the second Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Question Time.

A Private Bill, it was introduced on 27 October 2004 by its promoter, The Baird Trust. The objective of the Bill is to transfer the property, rights, interests and liabilities of The Baird Trust, a Scottish charity, to a new company limited by guarantee, also a Scottish charity, and known as The Baird Trust. When the transfer has been completed, the current Trust will be dissolved and the Acts of Parliament under which it was established and its constitution amended will be repealed.

At the beginning of the year, a range of measures to tackle Scotland's sexual health problems were published. Respect and Responsibility - Strategy and Action Plan for Improving Sexual Health - Scotland's first strategy for sexual health - sets out clear challenges for Government, NHS Boards, local authorities and other agencies to deliver better sexual health services across the country. It also makes clear that individuals have a responsibility for their own health and for the safety of others.

The £15 million additional funding will be made available over three years from 2005-06 to 2007-08. This will be broken down as £5 million each year. The majority of the additional finance will be spent on improving frontline services. The £15 million is new money which is in additional to the resources - £10.284 million in 2004-05 - already being spent by NHS Boards and other agencies taking forward sexual health initiatives on behalf of the Executive. NHS Boards also spend money from their own budgets on sexual health services in their local areas.

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate on the Centenary of Barnardo’s from Robert Brown (LD).

The Bill aims to reduce levels of reoffending and improve the management of offenders by greater integration of the work of the criminal justice agencies. Measures in the Bill to tackle reoffending include the creation of Community Justice Authorities (CJA), the establishment of a Home Detention Curfew Scheme for low risk prisoners and the introduction of powers to recover from perpetrators compensation paid out to victims.

The Justice 2 Committee's Stage 1 report on the Bill broadly welcomes its general principles. The findings of the report also include a general consensus that Home Detention Curfews will not have any effect on reoffending unless there is consideration of attaching conditions for release over and above the standard conditions.

The contents of any statement must, of course, be made to the Parliament first, so no further details are available at the time of writing. That being said, it is likely that this will afford the Executive the opportunity to set out its position on ID Cards in light of the UK Government's plans which were outlined in the Queen's Speech.

This is followed by General Question Time and First Minister’s Question Time.

In the afternoon, after Themed Question Time (for the featured departments, see Section 1 above) the Stage 1 debate on the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Bill takes place.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an iterative and systematic process for identifying, predicting, reporting and mitigating the environmental impacts of proposed plans and programmes. The term "Environmental Assessment" includes both SEA and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). SEA is carried out on plans and programmes at a strategic level, EIA is carried out on specific development projects.

The SEA Directive was transposed in Scotland by the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes (Scotland) Regulations 2004 on 20th July 2004. The Partnership Agreement, however, commits the Executive to go further than obliged by the Directive and include all new and amended strategies as well as plans and programmes. This Bill, therefore, is the new transposition vehicle for the SEA Regulations. It also goes beyond the Directive by requiring certain organisations to carry out SEA, with some exemptions, on all their plans and programmes.

There is no rigorous legal distinction between plans, programmes or strategies - Section 4(4) states that any reference in the Bill to plans or programmes includes strategies. The Bill requires SEA to be carried out on plans and programmes in areas such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water management and telecommunications.

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate on Learning Disability Week, 19 to 26 June 2005 from Jackie Baillie (LAB).

Wednesday 15th June 2005
14:20 - 14:35	Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Question Time
14:35 - 15:00	Final Stage: Baird Trust Reorganisation Bill
14:35 – 17:00	Executive Debate: Sexual Health
17:00 – 17:30	Member’s Business: Centenary of Barnardo’s (Robert Brown (LD))

Thursday 16th June 2005
09:15 – 11:10	Stage 1 Debate: Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Bill
11:10 - 11:40	Ministerial Statement: ID Cards
11:40 – 12:00	General Question Time
12:00 – 12:30	First Minister's Question Time
14:15 – 14:55	Themed Question Time: * Justice and Law Officers; * Enterprise, Lifelong Learning and Transport
14:55 – 17:00	Stage 1 Debate: Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Bill
17:00 – 17:30	Member’s Business: Learning Disability Week, 19 to 26 June 2005 (Jackie Baillie (LAB))

Monday 13th June 2005
PM	Environment and Rural Development	The Committee meets in Brechin City Hall to hear from 4 panels of different witnesses for the inquiry into rural development.

Tuesday 14th June 2005
AM	Finance	2 senior figures from Audit Scotland give evidence to the Executive’s Efficient Government initiative.
PM	Enterprise and Culture	Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Patricia Ferguson, gives evidence to the Inquiry into Scottish football.
	Justice 2	The Committee will consider correspondence from the Scottish Prison Service on the prisoner escort and court custody contract, before turning to post enactment scrutiny of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000.
	Health	Stage 2 of the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Bill continues.
Wednesday 15th June 2005
AM	Justice 1	Deputy Justice Minister, Hugh Henry, will move the Draft Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (Amendment of Police (Scotland) Act 1967) Order 2005.