Chamber and committees

Tackling health inequalities and improving population health remain clear, ongoing aims of the Scottish Government. Through the Place and Wellbeing Programme we are supporting local action to tackle health inequalities by: supporting health boards to operate as effective anchor institutions; supporting community and voluntary organisations; and ensuring they and public sector partners have the support and resources to take positive action locally.

Working alongside Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Government Anchors workstream within the Place and Wellbeing Programme is supporting NHS boards to act as effective anchor institutions and build greater prosperity in our local communities. All NHS Boards have now submitted Anchors Strategic Plans setting out how they are planning to maximise their footprint as employer, procurer and owner of land and assets, to channel greater wealth into local communities, which in turn will help contribute to reducing health inequalities.

Community and voluntary organisations play a key role is supporting the health and wellbeing of local communities. We are working with them to provide fairer funding processes and increase access to resources that can support them to work locally alongside the public sector to help reduce inequalities.

The information that has been requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Parliamentary business is a matter for the Scottish Parliament’s Parliamentary Bureau and the Parliament itself.

The information requested on how many full-time equivalent administrative support posts provide support to consultants across the NHS is not centrally available.

Since Sept 2007, administrative services have increased by 21.5% or by 5,316.9 WTE, from 24,737.2 WTE as at Sept 2007 to 30,054.1 WTE as at Dec 2023.

Support to clinical staff, up 45.4% since Sept 2007 to 9,600.5 WTE as at Dec 2023.

Further Information on the administrative services workforce, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: 05 March 2024 Workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

The information that has been requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Following the completion of the Allied Health Professions (AHP) Education and Workforce Policy Review, an advisory group has been established. Job planning is one area of focus within the delivery plan and the Scottish Government will work in conjunction with wider stakeholders to oversee the effective implementation of the recommendations.

The group held its second meeting on 4 March 2024 and will consider the timescales required to meet the overarching aims at its future meetings, scheduled in June and October 2024.

Decisions on clinical pathways are not for the Scottish Government. These decisions are for clinicians, based on the best evidence available, through the appropriate clinical governance structures.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.

In the context of specialist provision of gender identity healthcare to children and young people, since publication of its Strategic Action Framework for Gender Identity Service improvement in December 2021, the Scottish Government has maintained an extensive dialogue with NHS Health Boards in Scotland on how to collectively work to improve healthcare provision in this sphere.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for the assessment of abandoned calls to NHS 24 which is an operational matter for the Board. We monitor NHS 24 performance against a number of indicators on a weekly basis.

Calls to the 111 service can be abandoned for a variety of reasons, including callers choosing to end their call after being connected to the automated messaging service and hearing the options available to them. These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform, or contacting another area of the health service which may be more appropriate to meet their needs.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS 24's ongoing work to help reduce abandoned calls, including a recent revision of NHS 24's key performance indicators to better reflect and understand the current demands on the service. This work allows the Service to capture any unmet demand, and any potential risks where callers have made multiple attempts to access 111 without success.

The Scottish Government considers youth work within the school environment to be incredibly valuable.

An independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD), was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland which will provide valuable insights for the delivery of CLD in a reformed education system.