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The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) to consider workforce planning capacity and capability across services. We remain committed to building a culture of continuous learning and improvement in workforce planning, including through the guidance we developed to support the development of health board and HSCP three-year workforce plans. We have been exploring, with stakeholders, formal qualification and accreditation opportunities, we continue to take forward these discussions with partners in further and higher education, alongside the provision of in-house training.

As part of Leading to Change, the National Leadership Development Programme, we have been running a series of engagement events for the health, social work and social care sectors to promote compassionate and inclusive leadership at all levels and create an open and welcoming culture that will enable people to thrive.

Details of the events can be found here: Events | Leading to Change | Leadership Development | NHS Scotland

An update on the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care will be published later this year.

We recognise the impact that chronic pain can have on people’s quality of life, including those with health problems arising as a result of their service to their country. The Scottish Veterans Commissioner (SVC) report ‘Veterans’ Health and Wellbeing ( www.gov.scot ) contained a recommendation that the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain (NACCP) consider support for Veterans as part of their work.

As detailed in the Scottish Government’s Support for the Veterans and the Armed Forces Community report published in November 2020, in line with this recommendation, the Scottish Government provided funding for the Pain Association Scotland to deliver a project to develop bespoke chronic pain self-management support for Veterans which received excellent feedback from participants. Outputs from this work included the development of a standardised Veterans referral form for healthcare practitioners seeking to support these patients.

The Scottish Government set out a refreshed approach to improving care and support for people with chronic pain in the Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan , published in July 2022. The Plan sets out a number of specific actions that are intended to improve care and support for people with chronic pain across Scotland, irrespective of underlying clinical cause or background. As we deliver the Plan we will identify opportunities to improve pain management support for groups facing inequalities, including Veterans, to ensure they can access the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

Our Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan , published on 30 November 2021, is backed by £70m investment and focuses on recovery of services, including Workforce Training and Development.

The National Endoscopy Training Programme (NETP) was established in September 2021 and has recruited staff to deliver endoscopy training to a wide range of learners from different professional backgrounds. This supports the upskilling of practitioners from across Health Boards through a range of courses, including immersion training.

We have also established training programmes for Nurse Endoscopists, Advanced Urology Practitioners and Healthcare Support worker.

In 2021-22 funding of £91.4k was allocated to NHS Education for Scotland to support the Centre for Workforce Supply. The amount to be allocated in 2022-23 will be clarified at the financial year end.

The Scottish Government is working in conjunction with NES to support the identification of emerging technologies to assist the gap between service demand and capacity within the health and care system, particularly around staff training to enhance skills. Examples include:

• Online training provision within the Scotland Deanery.
• Train-the-trainer for “simulation” training across a number of specialties and in specific procedures, such as in cystoscopy.
• Virtual reality pilots for communications training in handling stressful situations in pre-hospital emergency care and mental health tribunals.
• Mental health simulation training.
• Virtual reality simulators, including six endoscopy simulators in 6 different health boards, alongside a national introductory course covering cancer diagnosis.
• A national urology simulator and learning programme.

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should make assessments of changing local service demand as part of analysing any local staffing gaps and pressure points, alongside setting out the actions that health boards and health and social care partnerships are taking to address identified issues.

The Scottish Government has worked alongside Higher Education Institutions, NHS Boards, NHS Education Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, and the Scottish Funding Council to agree controlled intakes for nursing, midwifery and paramedic science programmes and those discussions included multi-year intakes. An announcement on the details of the commissioned intakes for these subjects will be made shortly.

Humza Yousaf: ‘Progress has been made with delivery of this commitment, stage one of the design of the portal has been completed and NHS Education Scotland have been commissioned to bring together staff equality networks across NHS Scotland to discuss proposed content, in connection with sharing resources, information and support.’

For the Academic Year 2022-23 there are currently 1003 paramedic science students taking part in Scottish-Government commissioned education degree programmes.