Seòmar agus comataidhean

Health data is shared, typically in an aggregated and anonymised format, with trusted third parties through trusted research environments known as ‘Safe Havens’. These Safe Havens comprise of a national Safe Haven within Public Health Scotland and four regional Safe Havens associated with NHS Grampian, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian, and Tayside.

Safe Havens play a crucial role in protecting personal data, providing a secure space, and supporting the secure use of NHS data for researchers to access and analyse healthcare data without compromising individual privacy. Within Safe Havens researchers can work with anonymised or pseudonymised data, reducing the risk of re-identification of individuals. By implementing robust security measures and access controls, Safe Havens ensure that only authorised individuals can interact with the data, and that they can only access the level of data that is appropriate and proportionate.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33751 on 29 January 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Social media management includes the management of Scottish Government social media accounts across platforms, and the directly related services comprise organic content production and outreach to secure content from creators and influencers.

The Scottish Government, through the National Information Governance Programme and the Digital Health and Care Directorate, supports NHS boards by providing comprehensive guidance on enabling patients to access their medical records. Guidance includes the Records Management Code of Practice, the Confidentiality Code of Practice, and patient-facing guidance on NHS Inform explaining to patients what happens to and how they can access their personal data. Guidance is co-produced through a collaborative Information Governance community from across the NHS landscape, ensuring it reflects shared best practices and is centred on patient needs. This engagement with the NHS Information Governance community provides a valuable feedback loop to monitor compliance with such guidance, alongside direct interactions with patients, ensuring issues are addressed and mitigated accordingly.

A reassuring indicator of compliance within this feedback loop is the positive outcome of the recent ICO audit of health boards, underpinning our determination to ensure full transparency to patients and the wider public.

The Scottish Government is investing over £2.5 million in 2024-25 to support the mental health and wellbeing of health and care staff, reaffirming its commitment to their invaluable work. These resources include confidential mental health treatment through the Workforce Specialist Service and access to psychological therapies and interventions. Prioritising these treatment and therapeutic programmes reflects our commitment to offer care and support to those staff suffering from burnout, stress, anxiety and other conditions.

To ensure wellbeing support and advice is accessible to staff across Scotland, the National Wellbeing Hub offers a range of self-care wellbeing resources and signposting to relevant mental health and support services. Further, the National Wellbeing Helpline delivered by NHS 24 provides a 24/7 compassionate listening service which is available to all health and social care staff.

Specifically for healthcare workers in rural regions, Scottish Government are supporting the delivery of a pilot of online monthly reflective groups aimed at supporting GPs working in rural communities. These groups will provide participating GPs with a facilitated, confidential environment to connect with peers, to explore and receive support on any of the challenges they face in their work as a GP. To support the sustainability of this career enhancing activity, Scottish Government is also supporting the delivery of reflective practice groups facilitator training due to start in early 2025.

The Scottish Government supports employers to overcome barriers for those experiencing the menopause in several ways.

Diagnostics are central to many clinical pathways, and we are working to define the transformation necessary to deliver sustainable and equitable diagnostic services. Service innovation and redesign, creating additional capacity, and digital technology will be central to this.

The Scottish Government supports the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) initiative, hosted by Public Health Scotland, which offers a range of materials to support employers on all aspects of work-related health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work and workplace safety.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with Public Health Scotland and See Me, also delivers the Supporting a Mentally Healthy Workplace: National Learning Network for Employers. The network brings together employers of all sizes and across all sectors to share learning and experiences of supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Over 800 individuals are now engaged with the network.

The Scottish Government also fund Paths for All, a Scottish charity which promotes everyday walking. Paths for All run two national challenges a year in the spring and autumn. The Step Count Challenge (SCC) is a walking challenge for Scottish workplaces, which aims to encourage business to support employees to walk more to improve mental and physical health. In 2023-24, 325 workplaces took part in the spring, autumn and bespoke challenges.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling health inequalities including in areas of socio-economic deprivation and to supporting people to live longer and healthier lives. In 2024-25 Scottish Government has allocated £3bn to measures which tackle poverty, a fundamental driver of health inequalities, including the Scottish Child Payment; and continues to progress initiatives to support healthy lifestyles through tobacco and alcohol control and consulting on regulations to change the food environment to enable healthy weight.

The majority of health boards across Scotland have all, or some of their constituent population in a rural area. Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships take account of the diverse needs of their populations and plan their service provision according to that need.

Officials engage with Health Boards and HSCPs on a regular basis to review health outcomes.

The NRAC (resource allocation formula) is an objective measure of the need for health care services across Scotland. The current formula, which was established in 2005, considers the population share of each Board adjusted for the age/sex composition of the population, the relative health needs due to morbidity and life circumstances, and the excess cost of delivering healthcare to rural and remote areas. We have committed to a review of the funding formula. This supports vital work to reduce health inequalities; ensuring that we continue to allocate funding according to the relative need for healthcare in each Board area.