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There must be sufficient evidence in law before a prosecutor can decide whether or not it is in the public interest to prosecute. If there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed, the accused was the perpetrator and had the requisite mens rea (intention) the prosecutor will require to decide that prosecution is in the public interest. Every case is decided on the basis of its own particular facts and circumstances. No specific guidance is issued to Procurators Fiscal regarding assisted suicide. The Prosecution Code published by COPFS sets out the factors which can be taken in to account by procurators fiscal when deciding whether to prosecute. These considerations include the factors listed below at (i) to (xiii).

(i) The nature and gravity of the offence

(ii) The impact of the offence on the victim and other witnesses

(iii) The age, background and personal circumstances of the accused

(iv) The age and personal circumstances of the victim and other witnesses

(v) The attitude of the victim

(vi) The motive for the crime

(vii) The age of the offence

(viii) Mitigating circumstances

(ix) The effect of prosecution on the accused

(x) The risk of further offending

(xi) The availability of a more appropriate civil remedy

(xii) Powers of the court

(xiii) Public concern.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31018 on 2 February 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Suicide has not, in modern times, been considered a criminal offence in Scotland and therefore, unlike in England and Wales, there is no criminal offence of assisted suicide. Any question of responsibility for causing the death of another could amount to homicide and would be investigated as such.

A decision to prosecute would be taken by Crown Counsel on the facts and circumstances of the particular case and the Law Officers do not regard it as appropriate to prepare and publish detailed prosecution policy guidance in this area as the Director of Public Prosecutions has recently done in England and Wales.

GP practices in Scotland now offer a variety of extended hours to registered patients on their list. These include earlier appointment times, evening sessions, concurrent working patterns and occasional Saturday morning clinics.

The following table details the number of GP practices which are providing extended opening hours in Scotland. Uptake position as at November 2009.

NHS Board	Category
	1	2	3	4	Total
Ayrshire and Arran	47	0	12	0	59
Borders	11	0	12	2	25
Dumfries and Galloway	33	0	2	0	35
Fife	28	0	29	0	57
Forth Valley	50	1	6	0	57
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	186	0	84	0	270
Grampian	51	1	32	0	84
Highland	69	1	29	3	102
Lanarkshire	58	1	29	10	98
Lothian	79	1	45	0	125
Orkney	9	0	5	0	14
Shetland	4	3	0	3	10
Tayside	39	0	22	8	69
Western Isles	10	0	2	0	12
Totals	674	8	309	26	1,017

Notes:

Category 1: The number of practices that have contractually signed-up to provide extended hours to their patient list.

Category 2: The number of practices that have expressed a willingness to provide extended hours.

Category 3: The number of practices that are not providing extended hours.

Category 4: The number of practices that are currently undecided whether or not to provide extended hours.

The Hospital Medicines Utilisation Database will provide access to high level cost and volume data on medicines use in hospitals. This has been developed and piloted and will cover all NHS boards during 2010 with the exception of NHS Highland who are currently reviewing their pharmacy system and are therefore outside the scope of phase one of the programme.

The Difficult Decisions Short Life Working Group was an NHS Board group and there has been no direct involvement of ministers or Scottish Government policy officials. The remit of the group was to develop a framework that NHS boards can use when making difficult decisions, both in planning at a population level and when making decisions about individual patients.

The membership was chaired by Dr Gina Radford, Director of Public Health, NHS Fife (now working in NHS Cambridgeshire) and included the following members:

Ms Ailsa Brown, Principal Health Economist, NHS Quality Improvement Scotland

Mr Brian Devlin, Interim Head of Strategic Support and Ethics, NHS Highland

Dr Sara Davies, Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Scottish Government

Professor John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of St Andrews

Professor Graeme Laurie, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University of Edinburgh

Ms Liz Macdonald, Senior Policy Advocate, Consumer Focus Scotland

Ms Jackie Sansbury, Director of Strategic Planning, NHS Lothian

Secretariat: Dr Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian

The workplan was to:

build on discussions and conclusions from the Difficult Decisions national workshop (22 February 2008);

consider the published literature on making difficult decisions in NHS boards;

survey difficult decision making in planning and for individual patients across NHS boards and regional planning groups in Scotland;

review key concepts within the group;

assess the legal and ethical frameworks within which decisions must be made, and

draft a report and circulate to members.

As outlined in the answer to S3W-27698 on 5 October 2009, work is progressing on the information leaflet for patients as commissioned by the Scottish Government from Health Rights Information Scotland. The draft leaflet has been tested with patients and the public and will be published in due course.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The Scottish Government is in the final stages of the preparation of guidance which sets out the policy framework with regard to the introduction and availability of new medicines in the NHS in Scotland. The draft guidance was circulated to patient groups, stakeholders and NHS boards and will be made available to the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee for comment. The Scottish Government plans to publish the revised guidance by the end of March 2010.

Prescribing information derived from prescriptions dispensed in the community by community pharmacists and dispensing doctors is available at www.isdscotland.org/prescribing. These data can be used for monitoring trends and utilisation. Detailed prescribing information is available to NHS boards through PRISMS “ the Prescribing Information SysteM for Scotland which is a web-based information system on all prescriptions dispensed in the community over the previous five years. NHS boards have prescribing advisors who monitor the use of medicines by GP practices using PRISMS information and who can provide expert interpretation of the data and assess the clinical appropriateness of prescribing.

Variations in prescribing practice across Scotland can be influenced by a number of different local factors, for example, population size, patient demographics and deprivation and it is therefore important not to draw definitive conclusions from national data alone.