Seòmar agus comataidhean

These three services are funded as National Services within the NHS in Scotland. A review of their National Service status has recently been carried out by the National Services Advisory Group and the group's recommendations are being considered. A decision on these recommendations will be made shortly.

The Scottish Care Information (SCI) Programme will produce computer software products which NHS Trusts can use in conjunction with their own or commercial software to support priority activities, to enable information about a patient to be shared by clinical staff within the Trust or with the patient's GP and to serve as the basis for the Electronic Patient Record and Electronic Health Record.

In conjunction with other related initiatives, SCI will provide healthcare professionals with the right information where it is needed. Faster outpatient booking process is expected and improved exchange of information between primary and secondary care resulting in more appropriate referrals and more effective transfer of information on discharge from secondary care. Patients will benefit from not having to repeatedly give the same information to different parts of the same organisation and will have the reassurance that the clinicians have appropriate access to their clinical history. The benefits to NHS include better value for money for IM&T investment and the provision of IT systems and standards which have a high degree of compatibility.

The information requested is not available centrally.

The number of medical students graduated in Scotland in each of the last five years for which figures are available are shown in the following table. The table should be read in conjunction with the notes below.

	1993-942	1994-95	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98
Dentistry	1,049	125	135	143	125
Medicine		1,090	903	930	977
Allied to Medicine5	1,520	2,094	2,825	4,030	5,671

Notes:

1. Source: Scottish Executive, Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

2. Separate figures for Dentistry and Medicine in 1993-94 are not readily available.

3. Figures are for full-time students, from both Higher and Further Education Institutions, who successfully completed a higher education course in Scotland.

4. Higher education courses are defined as those at HNC/HND level and above.

5. Allied to Medicine includes courses such as Pharmacology, Opthalmics and Nursing.

6. 1998-99 data will be published in November 2000.

The following tables give the information requested for UK graduates (Table 1) and Scottish graduates (Table 2). The information has been provided by the Medical Careers Research Group (MCRG) at the University of Oxford. MCRG ask all those who graduate from UK medical schools about their employment history, providing a long-term picture of medical careers. They do not survey graduates every year. The most recent four years for which data are available are the graduates of 1996, 1993, 1988 and 1983.

The numbers recorded as not currently working in medicine include those who will rejoin the profession after a temporary career break.

Table 1: All UK medical graduates two years after graduation

	1996 graduates in 1998	1993 graduates in 1995	1988 graduates in 1990	1983 graduates in 1986*
Total responders	2,509	2,803	2,823	3,275
Not in medical profession	71	86	124	126
%	2.8	3.1	4.4	3.8

* After three years: data for two years unavailable.

Table 2: All Scottish graduates two years after graduation

	1996 graduates in 1998	1993 graduates in 1995	1988 graduates in 1990	1983 graduates in 1986*
Total responders	413	439	456	459
Not in medical profession	8	11	16	13
%	1.9	2.5	3.5	2.8

* After three years: data for two years unavailable.

The expenditure incurred in each of the last three years and in each of the following three years is:

1997-98	£183,391
1998-99	£228,720
1999-2000	£224,771
2000-01	£327,151
2001-02	£343,992
2002-03	£304,792

I refer the member to the statement I made to Parliament on transport spending on 28 September 2000.

It is too early to quantify what savings may be attributable to the work of the Common Services Agency's fraud investigation unit, which has been in operation since July, but this is a matter which will be examined further in the light of experience. The unit will also focus on deterring fraud against the NHS.

The Practitioner Services Division of the Common Services Agency went live in October 2000 with a new data capture, validation and pricing system for processing pharmacists' claims for payment in respect of dispensed prescriptions. Software for processing ophthalmic claims is being developed and that system is expected to go live early next year.

The table below gives the total number of prescription items dispensed, and the percentages of proprietary and generic products.¹

Information on dispensing details for branded products still on patent, and branded products for which a generic equivalent existed, is not recorded centrally and is not available in the form requested.

Prescription Items Dispensed in Scotland - 1995-96 to 1999-2000

	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000
Total items dispensed	53,263,578	54,985,962	57,192,917	58,797,506	60,908,779
% dispensed as generic	41.72%	44.34%	47.01%	48.69%	49.49%
% dispensed as proprietary	58.28%	55.66%	52.99%	51.31%	50.51%

Notes:

1. Excludes appliances, dressings, oxygen and unallocated items, which cannot be defined as generic or proprietary.