- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 21 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how the three aims of its public education campaign on hate crime were chosen; whether other aims were considered; whether it intends to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign, and, if so, which measures will be used.
Answer
Our Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion found that the public are not clear what is meant by hate crime and therefore many instances of hate crime can go unreported. We are working in partnership with stakeholders to develop a campaign which will increase awareness of what hate crime is among victims and bystanders in Scotland, how to recognise it and how to report it.
Once the details of the campaign have been finalised an appropriate evaluation will be conducted and published on the Scottish Government website once available.
This Government is clear that any form of hate crime is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We would encourage anyone who either experiences or witnesses any form of hate crime to report it immediately to the Police either directly or via a third party reporting centre.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 04 August 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 21 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many schools directly employ counsellors to be based on school premises.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-10074 by Shona Robison on 27 July 2017, how the £2.85 million of additional funding released in June 2017 will be distributed between NHS boards.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to support improved cancer access performance across NHS Scotland. £2.85m funding was distributed to NHS boards in June 2017 using the Scottish Resource Allocation Formula.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to make the recording of reliable data by NHS boards on where mental health patients are being treated a statutory requirement.
Answer
Scottish Government expects Health Boards and Integration Authorities to ensure adequate mental health care and treatment is available for their populations. This applies to community and hospital treatment. Generally these are provided as locally as possible within the Board / Authority area but there are exceptions where people are treated out of area. The reasons for out of area treatment are generally to allow access to highly specialist regional or national treatment tailored to specific individuals. For inpatients there are occasions where patients require admission out of area due to temporary bed unavailability but attempts are always made to minimise this.
Out-patient activity is reported by ISD. Inpatient activity is also subject to regular ISD reporting and an annual moment-in-time census. Health Boards wishing to use non NHS Scotland NHS beds access these through the National Services Division of NHS NSS who monitor these placements. Health Boards may also wish to use private non NHS facilities but they are not required to report this use on an on-going basis. The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland is informed of all detained patients and detention certificates include information on the site of admission. Cross Border transfers of detained patients are subject to Ministerial approval.
Beyond this data collection Scottish Government does not intend making the recording of data by NHS Boards on where mental health patients are being treated a statutory requirement.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people with mental health problems have been treated in England in each of the last three years for secure inpatient care (non-forensic) as a result of a lack of facilities in Scotland.
Answer
National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:
2014-15 - 4 patients
2015-16 – 3 patients
2016-17 – 2 patients
Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how information about pupil access to mental health services is recorded in light of the comment in The Scotsman on 26 July 2017, that "The Scottish Government say that a mental health link person is available for every school to access but it is not a specific job title and the role may be carried out by a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinician or another speciality such as primary care worker".
Answer
This information is not gathered centrally.
Awareness of child and adolescent mental health in schools has been improved by, amongst other things, our commitment to encouraging the establishment of explicit links between schools and child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) specialists as well as the development of a web-based toolkit () aimed at improving the confidence of teachers and others in responding to the mental health needs of children.
We take child and adolescent mental health very seriously. Our new 10-year Mental Health Strategy was published on 30 March, and sets out our vision to improve mental health in Scotland. A key section in the Strategy deals with prevention and early intervention. That section outlines our ambition that every child and young person should have appropriate access to emotional and mental well-being support in school. The very first action in the Strategy commits to a review of PSE, the role of pastoral guidance in local authority schools, and services for counselling for children and young people
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people with mental health problems have been treated in England in each of the last three years as a result of a lack of forensic CAMHS inpatient facilities in Scotland.
Answer
National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:
2014-15 - 4 patients
2015-16 – 3 patients
2016-17 – 2 patients
Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-10074 by Shona Robison on 27 July 2017, whether the £2.85 million of additional funding announced in June 2017 was new funding or whether it was allocated from the £100 million cancer plan announced in March 2016.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to support improved cancer access performance across NHS Scotland.
Our Cancer Strategy commits to investing an additional £2 million per annum in a new Diagnostics Fund to support swift access to diagnostics for people with suspected cancer. The funding announced in June 2017 includes a proportion of funding from the cancer strategy.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 15 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many people attended A&E departments in each year since 2011-12 where the primary diagnosis was a psychiatric condition.
Answer
There is variation and incompleteness in the recording of diagnoses in A&E. This means that it is not possible to produce accurate national reporting of trends in attendances due to psychiatric conditions. In 2016-17, around 3.8% of those attendances with a valid diagnosis code related to a psychiatric condition.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 July 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 14 August 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many mental health link workers will be recruited by the end of 2017, and whether they will be included in its commitment to employing 800 additional mental health workers.
Answer
The Scottish Government has committed to recruiting an additional 250 Community Links Workers (CLWs) in practices in deprived areas with 40 in place by September 2017. The rollout will be phased until 2021. CLWs connect people to non-medical sources of support or resources in the community which are likely to help with their health problems. To ensure CLWs are reaching those people most in need, they are equipped to deal with a wide range of issues with a large proportion of their contacts being with people who have mental health issues.
Over the next 5 years the Scottish Government is increasing additional investment to £35 million for 800 additional mental health workers. We will be working with local partners on priorities, service models and types of workers. Some of this investment could go towards more community links workers across Scotland if that is what local needs and arrangements require.
