Chamber and committees

A Sexual Health Digital Group has not yet been established, in recognition of the pressures facing the NHS as it recovers from the pandemic, and to avoid further demands on the time of the clinicians and NHS professionals who would be required to join.

However, to maintain momentum, the Scottish Government has continued to support digital solutions, including online testing and ePrEP. Additionally, much of the anticipated work that the Group would have taken forward will be addressed through other forums, such as the forthcoming update to the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework or through the refreshed Digital Health and Care Strategy. However, the establishment of the Group will remain under review and be stood up, should the need arise and resources permit.

The Scottish Government and NHS Scotland continues to promote the use of remote consultations, including NHS Near Me, as a means to support access to services and reduce the need to travel to appointments.

As an example of this support, Community Hubs are also being established in areas of Scotland where people could more easily attend and access appointments remotely. These Hubs provide a private space and equipment for members of the public to access digital services, such as video consultations.

More recently, Midwives in NHS Grampian have used Near Me Group s Consultations to provide Antenatal Classes which reduces the need for pregnant women to travel to their appointments. NHS Near Me has provided a short film which contains more information - Near Me Groups for Antenatal Classes, NHS Grampian - YouTube

The Women’s Health Plan, published in August 2021, contains an action to implement a Women’s Health Service in community pharmacies.

This service will be introduced on an incremental basis over the next few years. The first step was the introduction of bridging contraception in community pharmacies from November 2021.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring women can access appropriate contraception when and where they need it. Since November 2021, community pharmacies have been able to supply the progestogen-only pill for a 3-month period, if clinically appropriate to do so, and in line with a national Patient Group Direction (PGD). The national roll-out followed a successful pilot in pharmacies across Lothian and Tayside.

This availability of bridging contraception from community pharmacies enables women to access contraception without the need for a prescription and receive healthcare advice and treatment from their community pharmacist. Thereafter, individuals wishing to continue with a regular supply or access an alternative method of contraception, may contact their GP practice to request a repeat prescription or request an appointment to discuss their options.

Contraception can be obtained for free from:

• most GP surgeries

• community contraception clinics

• some genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics

• sexual health clinics

• some young people's services.

However, there are two brands of the progestogen-only available to purchase over the counter (OTC) in pharmacies, increasing choice for women in the ways in which they can access contraception.

Yes. The platform can be found at : Women's health | NHS inform

Through Reset and Rebuild - sexual health and blood borne virus services: recovery plan, published in August 2021, the Scottish Government provided an additional £0.5m of funding to assist sexual health and blood borne virus services to begin recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

Amongst the numerous projects funded through the Recovery Plan was the SHARE project launched by HIV Scotland, further details of which can be found here:

https://www.hiv.scot/stories/share-study-launch .

In addition, the Scottish Government has supported the Conundrum project, which was designed to understand factors shaping young people’s experiences of contraception, and provided insight into how young people’s access to condoms and contraception was disrupted during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Details of the project can be found here: University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Health & Wellbeing - News - CONUNDRUM project .

Understanding the impact of the pandemic will require on-going support, and it is expected that the next iteration of the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Framework, which will be published this year, will continue this work.

Data is only available from 2015-16. Since 2015-16 a total of 1,531 pharmacist trainees have stayed in Scotland to complete their pre-registration training year.

The following table shows number of pharmacist trainees who have stayed in Scotland to complete their registration broken down for each year since 2015-16.

We understand the importance of appropriate staffing to provide high quality care for people with chronic pain. As set out in our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care published in March 2022, we are committed to supporting the delivery of new training pathways for pain management to enhance and expand our pain-skilled workforce.

In July 2022 we published our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which sets out the actions we are taking to improve care and support for people with chronic pain, including through developing the pain management workforce. In support of this we have established a new national multi-disciplinary Chronic Pain Education Group which is focused on developing and promoting resources to enhance the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals across Scotland.

In addition, we are working with the Faculty for Pain Medicine to support the development of new credentials to increase the availability of pain management specialists across our NHS. We are also supporting work to develop a credential for Advanced Care Practitioners in pain management which will support GPs, paramedics, Allied Healthcare Professionals and other key roles gain the knowledge and skills to provide holistic, effective support for people with chronic pain in their communities.

An expert Menopause and Menstrual Health Policy Working Group has been established to progress this action.

The National Clinical Skills for pharmacists programme supports registered pharmacists take on new and extended clinical roles, however it is the Independent Prescriber course which allows community pharmacists to qualify as Independent Prescribers. In 2020-2021 NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) commissioned a total of 115 Independent Prescriber (IP) places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2021.

In 2021-2022 NES commissioned a total of 222 IP places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2022.

The Pharmacist Independent Prescribing qualification takes on average 12 months to complete and courses run 4 times a year, therefore to date 111 community pharmacists from these cohorts have qualified as an Independent Prescriber.