Chamber and committees

Extensive work has taken place to develop projections for the health and social care workforce, including engagement with stakeholders to understand different user needs, and actively including these in the specification for the workforce projections.

This piece of work has and will take into account where appropriate the (a) three year workforce plans and (b) the Medium term financial framework as the work develops.

We aim to set out high level conclusions from projections in the coming months. Clearly, these projections are iterative and will respond to and change depending on emerging evidence and data including the impacts of AI on demand and capacity in the workforce.

I refer the member to the Scottish Government’s publications webpage. You can find the framework here: Acute Oncology Service (AOS) in NHS Scotland: principles - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has established a Workforce Data Information and Intelligence Improvement Programme to support the ambition of the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland in achieving its vision of a ‘sustainable skilled workforce with attractive career choices and fair work where all are respected and valued for the work they do’.

This ring-fenced Programme of work focuses specifically on delivering actions which improve Health and Social Care workforce data, information and / or intelligence at national level which will contribute to better decision making, planning and strategy for the Health and Social Care Workforce in Scotland.

This work will be integrated, where appropriate with service delivery plans across the system, working towards a consistent approach to analysing the workforce and workforce data for future planning.

To ensure collaboration with stakeholders the programme is governed by the National Workforce Forum which has cross-sector representation from primary, secondary and social care. Two projects within the Programme are currently live, both governed and actioned by a cross-sector team of key stakeholders, including Project Teams and User Needs groups.

The first project is developing a process for annual workforce projections modelling. High level conclusions from initial projections modelling will be published in early 2023 and include details of assumptions and methodology used in development of the projections model.

This work will be further developed iteratively in response to emerging evidence and data and to capture the complexity of the health and social care workforce and its inter-dependency with financial and service planning.

The second project involves identifying key data links and gaps to address which will improve parity of data collection, design and data quality across the Health and Social Care workforce. User needs assessments of the current workforce data are currently underway across the Health and Care landscape.

The Programme’s medium and longer term plans will involve collaborating with service and financial planners to scope work to better integrate workforce data with service and financial delivery plans for health and social care.

An update on the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care will be published later this year.

I refer the member to the Scottish Government’s publications webpage. You can find the clinical leadership guidance here: Cancer workforce: clinical leadership guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This has been cascaded across all regional cancer networks and amongst the Cancer Managers. In addition, presentations on clinical leadership have occurred across the regional cancer network steering groups.

To date, the NHSScotland ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies Programme has refreshed the following PIN policies and process:

• Attendance
• Bullying and Harassment
• Capability
• Conduct
• Grievance
• Workforce Policies Investigation Process

These were launched on 1 March 2020.

In addition, the NHSScotland Whistleblowing Policy that includes the National Whistleblowing Standards was published in April 2021.

Following a pause due to the pandemic, the ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies programme of work has formally restarted.

The objective of the Once for Scotland Workforce Policies Programme is to produce refreshed, simple, standardised and person centred policies that are:

• accessible on an innovative digital solution;
• dynamic and interactive with staff and managers at the centre of policy and digital development;
• national standard for employment practice in NHSScotland.

This programme of work has and will continue to be progressed in partnership with representation from NHSScotland employers, trade unions and the Scottish Government using a dynamic and interactive engagement process involving all key stakeholders.

The Programme Board, that also has representation from the Scottish Government, Employers and trade unions, oversee and drive this work, supported by policy and digital development groups. The Programme Board reports to the Scottish Workforce and Governance Committee.

I refer the member to the Scottish Governments National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care, where we committed to developing a Remote and Rural Workforce Recruitment Strategy for Health and Social Care by the end of 2024. An update on the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care will be published later this year.

The Scottish Government does not hold official data on the unregistered workforce. However we do know that there were at least 4,869 Personal Assistants (PA’s) providing social care support to adults who were in receipt of either Self-directed support option 1 or from Independent Living Fund Scotland in 2021.

This data was captured from those Personal Assistants who applied for the Scottish Government Covid-19 thankyou payment which can be found here PA Programme Board Resources - Self Directed Support Scotland | Self Directed Support Scotland (sdsscotland.org.uk) .

A PA Programme Board was established in 2021 with a membership from the public, third sector and organisation’s representing disabilities. A co-produced Work Plan was developed which includes objectives to understand, grow and support the PA workforce including developing better research of this little known workforce.

The Personal Assistant workforce are employed by the person with social care needs or their family. The employer may also use funding from a variety of public sources as well as self-funding, as such there is no locus for SG to mandate the collection of this data. However, there will be an option to count all those non family member PAs from 2024 onwards as this workforce must be PVG checked from that date.

There has been a successful application for a PHD funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This position will start in October and will research PA assistance for disabled people, changing labour markets and social care reform. The PA Programme Board will be a collaborative partner with Glasgow University.

In 2022-23 the Scottish Government spent £2,761,815 on health and social care staff wellbeing. In addition to this, the Scottish Government intend to spend a further £1,397,475 on health and social care staff wellbeing in the remainder of this financial year.

We do not hold a detailed breakdown of spending at the level requested.

The Connecting Scotland programme aims to ensure that people in Scotland have access to digital services by providing them with opportunities to access and utilise devices, connectivity, skills, and support effectively. To date, the Scottish Government has committed over £48m to Connecting Scotland, through the Programme for Government and Winter Package for Social Support.

This is a matter for the Scottish Social Services Council. The information requested is not held centrally.