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Community alarms and/or telecare have been in use in their most basic form for over 40 years, with the latest Scottish Government statistics showing that over 126,000 people are being supported at home with telecare. In 2006, following the well-documented benefits of the use of more enhanced telecare as a preventative service in West Lothian, the Scottish Government launched the Telecare Development Programme to spread the approach across Scotland.

This ran until 2011, and independent evaluation carried out by the York Health Economics Forum showed that, overall, almost 44,000 people began a telecare service through the Programme. Around 2,500 hospital discharges were expedited as a result of national funding, whilst at the same time around 8,700 unplanned hospital admissions and over 3,800 care home admissions were also avoided.

By achieving the above outcomes, partnerships saved around:

• 546,000 care home bed days;

  • The average number of care home bed days saved per care home admission avoided was 143 (or roughly 20 weeks).

• 109,000 hospital bed days through facilitated discharges and unplanned admissions avoided;

  • The average number of hospital bed days saved per reduced delayed discharge was 11.

  • The average number of hospital bed days saved per unplanned hospital admission avoided was 9.

• 48,000 nights of sleepover/wakened night care;

• 444,000 home check visits.

See http://www.jitscotland.org.uk/action-areas/telehealth-and-telecare/ for more. Further embedding of telecare as a preventative measure is now being progressed by the Scottish Government through the Technology Enabled Care Programme.

We have committed to undertaking a feasibility study in 2017 into the extension of free personal care to those people under the age of 65 with a diagnosis of dementia. Although community alarms do not count as personal care, no decision has been made as to the scope of the feasibility study.

This information is not held centrally.

The primary aim of the Service Improvement Groups (SIGs) was to bring pain services across Scotland in line with the Scottish Service Model for Chronic Pain. Scottish Government funding was made available to NHS Boards from 2012, totalling £1.3 million, each for two-year periods. All 14 territorial Boards submitted applications based upon their respective local pain services, and these were accepted following a thorough assessment process. The central funding for the SIGs, therefore, was time-limited.

Beyond this additional funding period, it was (and is) a matter for NHS Boards to determine the most appropriate configuration and delivery of chronic pain services to meet the assessed needs of their resident populations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-03083 on 6 October 2016.

The options under consideration were presented at two public exhibitions on 6 and 7 December.

Our engagement paper “Mental Health in Scotland – a 10 Year Vision” made clear that one of the key proposed early actions in the next Strategy is perinatal Mental Health. We are currently finalising the Strategy.

The decision on whether to charge for a non-residential social care service is a matter for local government, and is subject to charging guidelines issued by the Convention for Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). See http://www.cosla.gov.uk/about/how-we-work/health-and-social-care/charging/care-home.

The number of babies that required specialist neonatal care by NHS Board of residence in each of the last three years is presented in the following table. The data includes live singleton and multiple births; stillbirths are excluded. Babies in Intensive Care, High Dependency Unit, Special Care and Transitional Care are included in the total of babies requiring specialist neonatal care.

Live births requiring specialist neonatal care, by NHS Board of residence, 2013-14 to 2015-16

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a review into the appropriateness of perinatal mental health services. However, we have taken note of recent reports by the NSPCC (“Getting It Right”, published in April 2015) and the Mental Welfare Commission (“Perinatal Themed Visit Report: Keeping Mothers and Babies In Mind”, published in June 2016). Both of these reports examine perinatal mental health services in Scotland. We are thinking carefully about the best way to improve perinatal mental health services in Scotland, and will lay out more details on how we propose to do that in the forthcoming 10-year Mental Health Strategy, including funding a managed clinical network.

This information is not held centrally. Data is collected quarterly from all Boards for waiting times for a first appointment/assessment at the pain clinic/service and waiting times for a first pain psychology services appointment. These data (both adjusted and unadjusted) are reported quarterly by NHS National Services Scotland’s Information Services Division and is available at https://www.isdscotland.org/. The data published so far is from the quarter ending 31 December 2015. It is important to note that these data are Non-Official Statistics and remain caveated as developmental.

The revised perinatal mental health curricular framework, to be published by NHS Education For Scotland, will focus on the educational needs of practitioners who support families in the perinatal period - defined as pregnancy and the twelve months following the birth of a child. The revised framework will emphasise the importance of addressing the psychological needs of women, their partners, and infants, including supporting parent-infant relationships, during this period.