Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to ensure that it captures primary healthcare workforce data to inform policy-making and any service changes.
The Scottish Government see good accessible workforce data as a key tool for effective future planning within the Primary Healthcare Workforce. We have a number of ways in which we do this.
In General Practice, Public Health Scotland published workforce planning data through the General Practice Workforce Survey in November 2022 that gives us access to the latest General Practice workforce wte data, this is followed by the General Practice Workforce and Population Survey that gives us accurate headcount data across General Practice, published most recently in December 2022.
Workforce data on general dental practitioners is published by NES biannually, the latest data was published in December 2022.
The Centre for Sustainable Delivery intends to publish a report on workforce planning for the eyecare workforce by end March 2023.
Reporting arrangements are in place to monitor progress of Health and Social Care Partnerships against their Primary Care Improvement Plans (PCIPs). This includes progress on establishing Multi-Disciplinary Teams. Further information is provided in our annual statistical publication that published in March 2022.