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The health care of prisoners transferred to the NHS as of November 2011. As part of this transition, all prisoner health care records and mental health service management information also transferred from Scottish Prison Service to NHSScotland. In terms of mental health care and treatment the Scottish Government is responsible for setting the overall policy direction of mental health services, and for working with and funding NHS boards and local authorities to ensure they plan and deliver appropriate local services. It is for local NHS boards to decide how they implement these policies to ensure that their local population have the highest quality care and treatment.

Specifically in relation to the mental health of prisoners, the National Prisoner Healthcare Network has a strategic and national coordinating role to support the delivery of high quality, safe, effective and consistent services to prisoners in a national Scottish Prison Service. This network has commissioned specific work streams on mental health and substance misuse to ensure that national policies and protocols are used and to ensure that resources are used effectively. Membership of the group includes the Scottish Government, NHS boards including the State Hospital and the Scottish Prison Service.

The Scottish Government was made aware of East Renfrewshire Council’s revised community council scheme of establishment on 29 June 2015. Local authorities have statutory oversight of community councils under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. This includes the duty to review their area’s community council scheme of establishment and if they consider it should be amended, to consult with the community councils concerned and the local community. Local authorities are accountable to their community for how they fulfil their functions including their statutory responsibility for community councils. The Scottish Government has no statutory role for monitoring how they fulfil these functions.

Scotland’s local authorities have statutory oversight of community councils under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Local authorities are accountable to their community for how they fulfil their functions including their statutory responsibility for community councils. The Scottish Government has no additional statutory role for actively monitoring how they fulfil these functions.

Workplace health and safety is reserved to the UK Government under the Scotland Act 1998. All employers have a statutory duty to comply with the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Compliance is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities.

The NHS in Scotland fully implements the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. All NHS boards are expected to report all incidents in accordance with the guidance issued by the Health and Safety Executive. This guidance is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hsis1.pdf.

The regulation of workplace health and safety is reserved to the UK Government under the Scotland Act 1998. The Scottish Government does not routinely collect workplace accident and injury data centrally.

The business and regulatory impact assessment for the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Bill will be published by 31 July 2015. The Scottish Parliament’s consideration of the Bill will determine what regulations are made under it. It is therefore not appropriate to comment on the publication of regulations at this stage.

The regulation of workplace health and safety in Scotland is reserved to the UK Government under the Scotland Act 1998. The regulation and inspection of health and safety in workplaces is undertaken by the Health and Safety Executive and Scottish local authorities as co-regulators.

Workplace health and safety regulation is reserved to the UK Government under the Scotland Act 1998. Employers have statutory duties to comply with the legislation and supporting regulations. The Scottish Government does not have a role in ascertaining compliance by other duty holders.

Over the last month NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has undertaken one of the largest service redesigns in the UK with the new £842 million Southern General Hospitals project. This is one of the largest hospitals in Europe – it replaces out of date facilities across Scotland and will transform the care provided for patients. Whilst the transition of services is now complete, it will inevitably take time for these changes to completely bed in, with staff getting used to the new working environment.

We should not lose sight of the scale of this transition. The board is confident that the new hospital has the physical capacity and staffing levels to treat quickly and efficiently the anticipated 106,000 unscheduled patients every year. The entire South Glasgow campus has approximately 1,630 adult acute beds – slightly more than the three hospitals it replaces – with 1,109 of these in the new hospital itself. There is a new, state of the art children’s hospital with 256 beds, and approximately 10,500 staff work on the campus.

I know the board are fully committed to working constructively with all stakeholders to effectively address the issues that have been raised. I have been, and continue to be, in close contact with senior management at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde over the transfer. I visited the A&E at South Glasgow University Hospital on 3 June 2015 to hear from staff about how the new teams are working together. During my visit the hospital was functioning well. Staff from the three previous sites have come together quickly and are working hard to improve performance and drive down waits. Planned and scheduled services are operating very well and, in some places, are outperforming the rest of the country. Similarly, long A&E waits have reduced significantly on 2014. This represents considerable progress already. Nonetheless, performance against the four hour A&E target has dipped and is some way off the national average, so there is more to do and I have been clear that the health board must drive further improvement over the coming months.

To this end, I confirmed on 16 June 2015 that the Scottish Government will be offering the South Glasgow University Hospital additional expert support to help improve A&E waiting times, following a request from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The Scottish Government is happy to offer the considerable expertise in unscheduled care at our disposal which will help the health board establish and embed improved management systems to ensure the smooth transfer of patients through the A&E department at the hospital. In turn, this should assist with the necessary steady improvement in local performance against the four hour A&E target, whilst sustaining the reduction in longer waits we have already seen.

Members can be assured that the government will keep progress under close review.

We are working closely with our stakeholders, including the National Neurological Advisory Group, the third sector, clinicians, and specialist nurses to identify priorities to ensure that people in Scotland living with a neurological condition have access to high quality person centred safe and effective healthcare services.