Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the comment by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on STV News at Six on 9 September 2025 that “Chronic pain sufferers have a debilitating condition that has a chronic impact on their entire ability to live life well. That is why we are investing across the health service to improve waiting times, to improve capacity within the health service", how much additional funding it has allocated from the health budget to hospital-based NHS chronic pain specialist clinics to (a) reduce waiting times and (b) improve the capacity for treatment.
We are investing £200 million across the health and social care system to increase capacity and reduce backlogs. For chronic pain services, this investment will support Health Boards to create additional appointments and strengthen the flow of patients through the system, helping more people to be seen more quickly.
We want to deliver better and more sustainable care for people with chronic pain and we have outlined the action we will take to achieve this vision in our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery Implementation Plan.
Through our Implementation Plan we are continuing to work with partners to improve how pain services are planned and delivered. We are also working to deliver a more sustainable and knowledgeable workforce by developing specialist training routes and new resources to enhance pain education and skills amongst NHS staff.