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Epilepsy: policy

Relevant policies

Currently there is no national strategy specifically for epilepsy. However there has been a Petition to the Scottish Parliament: Petition PE247. This calls for the Scottish Parliament to ensure that "there are co-ordinated health and social services that will benefit the 30,000 people in Scotland with epilepsy". A subsequent petition (Petition 1182) called for an increase in the number of epilepsy specialist nurses and for steps to ensure that all NHS boards provide adequate epilepsy services for adults, children and people with a learning disability. There is an active cross party group on epilepsy in the Scottish Parliament.

There are a number of policies and standards that relate to long term conditions in general and are relevant to epilepsy. In August 2007 Audit Scotland published a report on Managing Long-Term Conditions. This made recommendations about improving the care of people with long-term illnesses. The study focused on two conditions in particular, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and epilepsy. The main report, a summary of key messages and a podcast are available from Audit Scotland's list of publications for 2007. The Scottish Government strategy document Better Health, Better Care outlines health policy direction in Scotland and includes many references to long term conditions. The Long Term Conditions Alliance for Scotland (LTCAS) have published a long term conditions strategy for Scotland ("Gaun Yersel") which outlines some of the approaches needed to achieve better outcomes for people with long term conditions.

Guidelines and standards for practice in Scotland

Guidelines for clinical practice in Scotland are currently provided by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN). SIGN 70: "Diagnosis and management of epilepsy in adults" was published in April 2003 (with a minor update in 2005). A reviewPDF Button (102Kb) of the guideline in 2007 concluded that it needed to be updated in the light of new evidence. SIGN 81: "Diagnosis and management of epilepsies in children and young people" was published in March 2005.

Epilepsy Scotland have published "Epilepsy in Later Life: a Good Practice Guide" PDF Button (3.65MB). This practical guide is based on good clinical practice and the limited evidence base available in this area.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland published draft Clinical Standards for Neurological Services in 2008. These include a section on epilepsy.

In England the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published a clinical guideline in 2004 for the diagnosis and management of epilepsy. An updated version is due for publication in March 2011. A National Service Framework for Long Term Conditions was published in 2005. This includes recommendations to improve the care of people with epilepsy, many of which are also relevant to Scotland.