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.

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.

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.

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.

The requested information can only be provided for 2011-2015 as data captured prior to this is not comparable.

As such I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-02037 on 13 September 2016. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

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 expects psychological therapies to be provided across the whole breadth of mental health services whenever appropriate, including perinatal mental health services.

This information is not held centrally. We expect that mental health care and treatment will be delivered by all NHS Boards in a person-centred manner to meet each individual’s needs. That includes the appropriate provision of clinical psychologists to meet local circumstances.

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.