Scottish Parliament e-Brief
Issue 74, 9th July 2001
SECTION 1 - BUSINESS THIS WEEK
Parliament is in recess.
SECTION 2 - NEWS
Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, Wendy Alexander, has celebrated the opening of the 100,000th Individual Learning Account.
ILAs, introduced last September, help people to invest in their own learning with financial support from the Scottish Executive.
The first 100,000 account holders in Scotland receive £150 towards the cost learning for a personal contribution of £25. Subsequent account holders will receive discounts of 20% on most learning and 80% for basic IT, numeracy and communication courses.
Ms Alexander marked the achievement by meeting account holder Karen Baillie, from Cumbernauld.
Karen, a former assembly line worker, was keen to improve her job prospects by training as a forklift truck driver. She used her ILA to help pay for her course.
Ms Alexander said:
"ILAs are designed to encourage people to take advantage of the wide range of learning opportunities that are available in Scotland.
"Whether for pleasure or for work, learning can change lives, as Karen demonstrates. From working on a production line she is now looking forward to exploring new career routes.
"Karen has successfully completed her forklift course with the help of her ILA and is considering investing further in her own future by enrolling on an HGV driving course.
"ILAs offer learning choices for everyone aged 18 and over not already in full time learning. Increasingly learning and earning are linked and the success of ILAs is playing a key role in our ambition to create a skilled and competitive Scotland."
Individual Learning Accounts are promoted by the Scottish University for Industry (SUfI) through its learndirect scotland brand. Callers to its free phone helpline number 0808 100 9000 are given information on how to apply for an ILA.
Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Mac Armstrong, has welcomed the launch of a consultation to improve patients’ rights to confidentiality and privacy throughout the Scottish healthcare system.
The consultation, drawn up by the independent Confidentiality and Security Advisory Group for Scotland, will seek views on how best to improve patient confidentiality, while at the same time, enabling information from patients to be used to support vital healthcare activities such as cancer screening and medical research.
Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Mac Armstrong, said:
"Patient confidence in how the NHS and its partner agencies use health information, underpins good health care and the efficient running of medical and support services.
"It is vitally important that all health professionals maintain good records with all the necessary details. However, it is equally important that patients know how, when and why this information is used, that they are content with these processes and that information continues to flow in a way which will benefit the individual patient and also the wider public."
Until recently, the use of patient identifying information in the NHS in Scotland was governed by the Data Protection Act 1984 and common law on privacy and confidentiality. The law has now changed as a result of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 2000 – for example data protection rules now extend to manual as well as computerised information and there are new personal rights to privacy for every citizen. The effect of this is to require users of data to be more transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of individuals.
A copy of the consultation is available on the SHOW website: http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/csags/ppc.pdf
SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS
Parliament is in recess.
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