A consultation on the provision of specialist residential chronic pain services in Scotland

Chapter 4: How to respond

The Scottish Government are inviting responses to this consultation paper by
27 October 2013.

Please send your completed Respondent Information Form and completed questions to: specialistpainservices@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or to Gill Gunn, The Scottish Government, Clinical Priorities Team, Area GER, St Andrews House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG.

Handling your response

The Scottish Government need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public.

Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form as this will ensure that the Scottish Government treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published, the Scottish Government will regard it as confidential and treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public and after the Scottish Government have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public in the Scottish Government Library and will also be published on the Scottish Government consultation web pages.

You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the Scottish Government Library on 0131 244 4556. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and a report compiled of the findings. It is anticipated an announcement on the chosen option will then be made by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in January 2014. The relevant impact assessments, set out in Annex C will be undertaken as part of the next steps and an implementation plan developed.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the Scottish Government at the address noted at the top of this page.