Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has worked alongside Higher Education Institutions, NHS Boards, NHS Education Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, and the Scottish Funding Council to agree controlled intakes for nursing, midwifery and paramedic science programmes and those discussions included multi-year intakes. An announcement on the details of the commissioned intakes for these subjects will be made shortly.

The Scottish Government works closely with partners including Health Boards, Skills Development Scotland (SDS), and the Scottish Funding Council on skills development, employability and widening access to health and social care careers, including the development of progressive career opportunities for existing staff and apprenticeship models to provide ‘earn and learn’ pathways.

Boards have created opportunities for over 500 band 4 assistant practitioners across acute, primary care and mental health, using the Development and Education framework for Bands 2-4 staff to support the continued professional development of this integral part of the NHS workforce.

We continue to prioritise the development of credentialing of medical skills, working collaboratively with the other 3 nations, GMC, Medical Colleges, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and NHS Boards to identify and progress upskilling priorities more quickly that will improve services and benefit patients.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) was commissioned by the Scottish Government in late 2021 to develop Objective Structured Clinical Examination(OSCE) training provision and this training is available to all international nurses working across NHS Scotland as required for NMC registration.

The Scottish Government is working in conjunction with NES to support the identification of emerging technologies to assist the gap between service demand and capacity within the health and care system, particularly around staff training to enhance skills. Examples include:

• Online training provision within the Scotland Deanery.
• Train-the-trainer for “simulation” training across a number of specialties and in specific procedures, such as in cystoscopy.
• Virtual reality pilots for communications training in handling stressful situations in pre-hospital emergency care and mental health tribunals.
• Mental health simulation training.
• Virtual reality simulators, including six endoscopy simulators in 6 different health boards, alongside a national introductory course covering cancer diagnosis.
• A national urology simulator and learning programme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. 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

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should make assessments of changing local service demand as part of analysing any local staffing gaps and pressure points, alongside setting out the actions that health boards and health and social care partnerships are taking to address identified issues.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13366 on 20 December 2022. 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 .’

In my statement to parliament in November last year I stated I had recently launched Leading to Change, the Scottish Government’s national leadership development programme, for health, social work and social care. More information can be found on the website: Leading to Change | Leadership Development | NHS Scotland

a) The budget for Leading to Change is £978,000 for year 2022-23.

b) We have conducted user research to ascertain the programme’s reach and to ensure it fully meets the user needs. As of 9 January the following data applies:

• Website ; 7,774 users, 30,731 page views - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023 (18:00);
• 1983 people signed up to distribution list - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023 (18:00);
• 10,238 registered users on the Leading to Change app - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023
• Twitter 5,569 followers as at 9th January 2023 (accounts were @ProjectLiftScot pre 3rd October 2022)
• 964 colleagues attended 11 events - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023
• 107 colleagues on longer term leadership development programmes delivered or co-delivered by Leading to Change between Sept 22 – 09 January 2023 (some programme began before the launch date)
• 178/200 available Leadership Live subscriptions (22 pending) 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023

c) By ensuring we invest in leadership development we are supporting our valuable front line services to create the conditions and culture that are critical to delivering better outcomes for the people who use our services. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the core of the Leading to Change programme with tailored and targeted interventions being delivered to increase and support the diverse workforce.

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

The information on how many Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staff there have been in each year since 2007 can be found: CAMHS | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

The staff in post tab provides quarterly data for CAMHS workforce.

The Women’s Health Plan sets out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women across their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

The Plan includes actions to develop a menopause/menstrual health policy for NHS Scotland staff in 2023. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13514 on 16 January 2023 for an update on the development of a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland. 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 .

The Plan also contains an action to encourage Health Boards to participate in the Equally Safe at Work accreditation scheme. I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13539 on 23 January 2023 for an update on progress on this action.

The Race Equality Immediate Priorities Plan (IPP) Annex B contains actions under systemic recommendation 4 (Fair Work Practices) to support minority ethnic staff. Data recommendations 10, 11 and 14 also contain actions on monitoring workforce data, NHS workforce data and accountability and governance. These are published online at: Annex B - Immediate Priorities for Race Equality 2021-23 - Race equality: immediate priorities plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .’