Chamber and committees

Officials hosted webinars which took place week commencing‎ 9 January to offer additional support to providers in applying PR and Marketing approaches at a local level, based on their specific need, and to share more insight into the alternative recruitment routes available, such as Apprenticeship and Employability programmes.

These events were optional and open to all providers across social care sector. Invitations were issued to providers through CCPS and Scottish Care.

We plan to review the feedback provided on these webinars to assess the interest for further webinars to be hosted, consider how these may be improved in the future and what additional topics participates would be keen for these to cover.

The total cost of the 2021-2022 campaign was £206,970. The 2023 campaign has been developed to have a much greater media presence and will aim to reach a broader audience than previous campaigns. With this, the projected spend for the 2023 campaign is £500,000. This also cost also includes activities on insights gathering to gain further clarity on how the campaign messaging is received and the public perceptions of a career in social care to help inform and shape future recruitment support.

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.

Our aims for Digital Skills & Leadership for all staff across Health & Care in Scotland are delivered by the cross-sector Building Digital Skills & Leadership Programme hosted by NHS Education for Scotland.

This Programme that has funding in place until June 2023 has been incorporated into Priority Four of the ‘Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2022 to 2023’ that was published on 8 November 2022. Details of this programme within the delivery plan can be found on the Scottish Government website at:

Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2022 to 2023 - Digital Skills & Leadership

We recognise that the opportunities offered by digital are continually evolving and we need to continually explore those opportunities to transform our services for patients and service users. Our further plans for Digital Skills & Leadership will be outlined as part of an update of the delivery plan by April 2023 taking account of the budget available for 23/24 and further opportunities to support and accelerate reform.

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.

As outlined to the member in parliamentary question S6W-13453 on 26 January 2023, the national framework for acute oncology services has been published. The framework lays out the agreed key principles that underpin an effective Acute Oncology Service (AOS) in NHS Scotland and outlines the clinical standards and proposed outcome measures against which services can be developed and monitored.

In addition, we have committed to increasing the acute oncology workforce as outlined in the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

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.