Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government acknowledges that publication of this report has been delayed due to our pandemic response efforts. We will be publishing the Independent Expert Working Group report on 6 October 2021.

The next round of allocations will be confirmed and dispersed to local authority areas this Autumn.

Scottish Government has been working with heath boards most likely to be impacted by COP26 and have put in place measures to support provision of health services to official delegates and others visiting Scotland during the summit period.

Hosting this event does place an additional demand on our NHS and we continue to work closely with Scottish and UK partners to mitigate potential impact on NHS services and staff workload.

Special Advisers in the Scottish Government are bound by the Special Adviser Code of Conduct and the standards of integrity and honesty required of all civil servants as set out in the Civil Service Code. The Scottish Government has accepted the Hamilton Report proposal to give further consideration to matters relating to Special Advisers. We will cooperate with the Independent Advisers on taking this forward as part of any wider revisions to both the Ministerial Code and the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers that might be required.

Under the terms of our Agency Agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Carer’s Allowance must be delivered in Scotland under the same procedures and rules as in England and Wales. As the COVID restrictions are lifted, DWP’s firm position is that there is no longer a need for these easements. We have encouraged DWP to consider closely the impact of this change. Regulations remain in place that continue to ensure that breaks in care for the period from March 2020 up to 31 August 2021 are disregarded as part of Carer’s Allowance calculations. Moreover, if Parliament passes the Carers Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill then an increased payment of Carer’s Allowance Supplement will be made in December, which will total £462.80 for those in receipt of Carer’s Allowance in Scotland.

Carers Allowance sits alongside a wide range of carer support, including the Carers Act which enhances and extends the rights of all carers in Scotland. This year we have invested an additional £28.5m for local carer support, bringing total investment in the Carers (Scotland) Act to £68m per year. We are currently consulting on how best to amend the Carers (Scotland) Act to create a new right to breaks from caring. Alongside the statutory support, we fund Shared Care Scotland and Family Fund to deliver the £3 million per year Short Breaks Fund. Last year we put an extra £1.1m into the Short Breaks Fund and £300,000 in our Young Scot young carer package, to support carers of all ages to enjoy some time away from their caring role and look after themselves. This year we have already committed an extra £570,000 for the Short Breaks Fund and in October will be opening the ScotSpirit Holiday Voucher Scheme for carers and families on low incomes. Although not specifically for carers, the Scottish Welfare Fund can also provide a vital safety net for those on a low income experiencing a short term financial crisis.

Strategic national action on dementia to support local service design and delivery is informed by extensive national data, both actual and estimated. We commissioned and published in 2016 the first national report on estimated annual diagnosed dementia incidence, designed to show the estimated annual flow of new diagnoses into the health and social care system, specifically to help local workforce planning and resourcing around dementia post-diagnostic support, and to enable local and national measurement against the national dementia post-diagnostic commitment. This report will be re-commissioned this year.

Local systems collect and hold diagnosis data when individuals with a dementia diagnosis are referred for post-diagnostic support.

Public Health Scotland hold and publish data at consultant or speciality level, which means, for dementia clinical assessments and clinical treatments, old age psychiatry. Those consultations are not broken down by condition or illness.

The Scottish Government draws on extensive actual and estimated data to support local dementia service, workforce and resource planning, including data on estimated dementia prevalence and annual estimated diagnosed incidence, as well as estimated annual spend on dementia by Integration Joint Boards

NHS Scotland's staffing levels are at a record high, with 25,000 more whole time equivalent staff members working in our NHS under this Government.

Supporting our National Health Service is a central part of the Scottish Government’s programme of work. This is backed by record investment of over £16 billion this year which includes funding to support wellbeing and capacity across our NHS workforce.

On supporting staff in relation to mental health issues: for the financial year 2021-22 the Scottish Government has announced an increased budget of £8 million - an increase of £3 million on last year - to provide ongoing support for the mental health and wellbeing of health and social care workforce across Scotland. This includes targeted support to the primary care and social care workforces of £2 million.

On staff wellbeing and safety, our Health Recovery Plan, published on 25 August, outlines that recovery of staff is intrinsic to our collective ambitions for renewing services. Investment in support for staff wellbeing is therefore an essential and vital component of the recovery plans.

On staffing issues, to support recruitment and free up capacity in the short term we will provide £2 million of financial support to NHS Boards to increase capacity within their recruitment teams and support international recruitment.

We will invest £11 million over the next 5 years in new national and international recruitment campaigns and establish a new national Centre for Workforce Supply. International recruitment of healthcare workers will build capacity in our health workforce and complement existing routes into NHS Scotland.

Work has been undertaken throughout the pandemic with national Regulatory Bodies to ensure that as many former nurses, doctors and allied health professionals who wish to return to work in NHS Scotland are able to do so. We will also support the aims of the Young Person’s Guarantee by increasing opportunities for young people to access employment in NHS Scotland and will explore a range of new initiatives, links with schools and increasing apprenticeships.

Table one shows the total number of patients seen and number that waited over 18 weeks to be seen for orthopaedic treatment in NHS Highland, from January 2020 to June 2021.

The Scottish Government will continue to take forward our No One Left Behind approach to employability, which is based on partnership and collaboration to deliver joined-up person-centred services through transformational change.

No One Left Behind sees a departure from nationally commissioned programmes to a more localised commissioning approach, which supports local service delivery and a holistic package of support tailored to individual needs, aligning more closely with other services such as health, housing and justice, to drive better outcomes for individuals who want help to find work.

The first stage of implementation commenced in April 2019 when ‘Activity Agreements’ and ‘Scotland’s Employer Recruitment Incentive’ ceased and were replaced by a local allocation of No One Left Behind investment across the 32 local authority areas.

As outlined in the No One Left Behind Delivery Plan (24 Nov 2020), we will proceed with further implementation of No One Left Behind from April 2022 after a delay to take into account the circumstances of the pandemic. This means the employability programmes Community Jobs Scotland and Employability Fund will cease with funding transferring to No One Left Behind local governance arrangements.

This local governance approach allows Local Employability Partnerships (LEP’s), which involves a range of partners including Skills Development Scotland, Department for Work and Pensions, Colleges, NHS, the third sector and business representatives to work together with local communities to design and deliver services that best meet both individual and labour market needs in each local area.

We remain committed to working with partners in the public, private and third sector as we prepare for this change to ensure continuity of support and access to employability services for individuals.