Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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.

The NHS National Ethnic Minority Forum (EMF) was established in April 2021 and aims amplify the voices of ethnic minority staff across the health service and tackle issues of systemic racism. EMF members also use their expertise to shape policy and practice in areas such as the Leading to Change Programme. We continue to work closely with the EMF on their priorities for 2023-24:

• the development of a ‘How to Talk about Race’ in the workplace guide
• considering support for staff reporting incidents of racial abuse/harassment
• supporting the development of anti-racism training resources for staff (an action that Scottish Government are taking forward).

Finally, I had the pleasure of attending an in-person meeting of the EMF on the 5 th October 2022. I made it clear that I will continue to actively support the chair and members in delivering their aims objectives.

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 complement the local support available for the mental health and wellbeing of the health and social care workforce, the Scottish Government are continuing to provide a range of resources including the National Wellbeing Hub, a 24/7 National Wellbeing Helpline, confidential mental health treatment through the Workforce Specialist Service, Coaching for Wellbeing and funding for additional local psychological support. We are also working closely with NHS Boards to support a range of local initiatives designed to meet the basic and practical needs of Doctors in Training, and their teams. This includes access to quiet spaces to support health and wellbeing, and the installation of lockers.

Our ongoing response will be informed by the Improving Wellbeing and Workforce Cultures Strategy which will be launched in 2023. The strategy is a commitment from the Scottish Government to drive a supportive and enabling culture for people working in health, social care and social work across wellbeing, leadership and equalities.

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 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.

I refer the member to the answers to question S6W-13542 on 20 January 2023 and S6W-13509 on 24 January 2023. 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