The Act: an Overview
3.The Act imposes duties on health boards to provide certain forensic medical services to victims of sexual offences (and of harmful sexual behaviour by children under the age of criminal responsibility).
4.The Act places on a statutory footing the pre-existing arrangements under which forensic medical examinations of such victims were carried out by health boards. Those arrangements were set out in a memorandum of understanding agreed between Police Scotland and health boards, which allowed Police Scotland to refer victims to health boards for forensic medical examination.(1) The carrying out of such examinations by health board staff facilitates the simultaneous addressing of any health care needs of the victim arising from the incident in connection with which the examination is required.
5.As well as providing examinations in these “police-referral” cases, some health boards(2) also provided forensic medical examinations on a “self-referral” basis. “Self-referral” means that victims can undergo a forensic medical examination without first having reported the incident to police. Any evidence collected is stored. This allows victims to make a decision about whether to report the incident to police in their own time. The Act requires all health boards to make forensic medical examination available on a self-referral basis in cases involving sexual offences (or harmful sexual behaviour by children under the age of criminal responsibility).
6.What makes a physical medical examination a forensic medical examination is the fact that evidence is being collected for use in any subsequent investigation or court proceedings in relation to the incident. This aspect of forensic medical examination distinguishes the functions conferred by the Act from health boards’ other functions. The Act sets out this part of the purpose of forensic medical examinations clearly, ensuring that health boards have a clear legal basis for their actions in this area (for example, in collecting, retaining and transferring information3).
7.The Act requires health boards to have regard to the importance of exercising the functions it confers in a trauma-informed way.
8.The Act also deals with various other matters to do with health boards’ provision of forensic medical examinations and the storing and transfer of evidence collected during such examinations. In addition, it includes provisions allowing related functions to be conferred on, for example, special health boards, and ensuring co-operation between health boards in this area; creates rights for victims to request victim support information from health boards; requires reports to be made on the operation of the Act for 10 years following implementation; and makes various consequential modifications of other enactments.