§ Dr. GodmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list, for each health board area, the number of nurse clinical grading appeals which are pending at the different levels of the appeals procedure; what are the amounts of money involved in these claims; what proposals he has to improve the processing of appeals; and when he expects the whole exercise to be completed.
§ Mr. StewartI understand that there were no nurse clinical grading appeals outstanding at health board level on 21 January 1994. On the same date a total of 586 appeals were outstanding at Scottish and national levels, a reduction from 960 in May 1993. The breakdown of these by health board is given in the table.
No estimate of the total sum of money involved in these claims has been made. The nursing and midwifery staffs negotiating council is currently discussing new procedures to speed up and streamline the appeals process and I expect that the bulk of the outstanding cases in Scotland will be cleard by early 1995.
Outstanding Nurse Clinical Grading Appeals in Scotland Health board Scottish appeals committee outstanding National level appeals outstanding Total Argyll and Clyde 1 26 27 Ayrshire and Arran 13 4 17 Borders 1 11 12 Dumfries and Galloway — 16 16 Fife 1 44 45 Forth Valley 40 64 104 Grampian 10 5 15 Greater Glasgow 14 46 60 Highland — 11 11 Lanarkshire 24 39 63 Lothian 1 56 57 Orkney — — — Shetland 1 3 4 Tayside 85 62 147 Western Isles — 8 8 CSA — — — State Hospital — — — Total 191 395 586