Chamber and committees

We thank researchers at the University of Aberdeen and the Keele Cardiovascular Research Group for their important contribution to understanding sex disparities in care and outcomes across Scotland amongst men and women admitted for heart attacks. 

We will continue to engage with women and girls, clinicians, academics and the third sector to explore the drivers and solutions to disparities in care for women with heart disease as we develop the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

The Women’s Health Plan set 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.

We have taken specific action through the Plan to support practitioners providing care to women accessing their service including commissioning NHS Education for Scotland to create bespoke training packages on menstrual health and menopause for general practice and others working in Primary Care.

In addition, our ‘Women's experiences of discrimination and the impact on health’ report was published on 27 June 2023. The report examines the current evidence base on women's health inequalities and reports on a two-phase research project. The findings in this project contribute to the evidence base on women's health inequalities, discrimination and young women through in-depth exploration of women in Scotland's intersectional experiences. The findings from this report will inform the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and supporting legislation, provides a specific right for people to make complaints, raise concerns, make comments and give feedback. The Act also places a duty on NHS Boards to thoroughly investigate and respond to any concerns raised, to take improvement actions where appropriate and to share learning from the views they receive. When a person has concerns about their treatment or care, this should be addressed at a local level through the NHS complaints procedure. When resolution is not possible the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the second and final stage in the complaints process.

The SPSO is independent from the provider of healthcare and Ministers, and looks into complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.

We are committed to openness and transparency in an NHS that welcomes all forms of feedback and uses it to inform continuous improvement.

More broadly, the Women’s Health Plan set out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women throughout their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 – 2024 identified the need to shift the perception of heart disease in women. We delivered a successful awareness campaign throughout February 2023. In 2024, we worked closely with the ALLIANCE Scotland to improve awareness and engagement with women’s heart health through online webinars and resources.

More information can be found in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy 2021 – 2026 contains a commitment to addressing key inequalities in out of hospital cardiac arrest outcomes and references inequality in the provision of CPR in women.

Through the delivery of this strategy, Save a Life for Scotland partners have been working to address misconceptions about CPR and embed the knowledge that it is a gender neutral, life-saving technique.

We made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, published in August 2021. Actions taken and progress are outlined in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

Our ambition is that women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we develop the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Any future priorities will be determined in partnership with our stakeholders.

Within the Scottish Government policy responsibility for Health and Care Research sits with the Chief Scientist Office (CSO)

CSO is engaged with the MESSAGE (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) project, a UK-wide initiative which aims to improve the integration of sex and gender considerations across data collection, analysis and reporting in Biomedical, Health and Care research in the UK. MESSAGE brings together stakeholders from across the UK to co-design a sex and gender policy framework for funding and regulatory organisation and supporting policy implementation across the UK research sector. Medical Science Sex & Gender Equity

The co-designed framework was launched at the end of 2024 and introduced new recommendations for scientific practice which aim to enhance the quality of UK science at each stage of the research pipeline. CSO contributed to the development of the framework and is working to align its practices with the MESSAGE recommendations.

Through the Women’s Health Plan 2021- 2024 work has been ongoing to map the data on women’s health in Scotland. We have published a ‘Review of the Data Landscape’ that sets out some of the routinely published data on women’s health currently available in Scotland and highlights key gaps. The Care and Wellbeing Dashboard, which provides access to the latest data on population health outcomes and the wider determinants of health in Scotland, will also include breakdowns by sex where this data is available.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

The Women’s Health Plan set 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.

Through the Plan we have appointed Scotland’s first Women’s Health Champion; created a Women’s Health Platform on NHS Inform, commissioned NHS Education for Scotland to create bespoke training packages on menstrual health for general practice and there is now a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland.

In addition we funded the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to deliver our Women’s Health Plan lived experience programme. This has included webinars, videos, a toolkit and our Lived Experience Stakeholder Group to raise awareness of women’s health topics and ensure women and people with lived experience are meaningfully involved in decision making and priority setting.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Information listing the location and opening hours of all Changing Places facilities, including those within railway stations is available from the Changing Places Toilet website. For Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central stations, this is available on Network Rail’s website.

Prosecutors come into contact on a daily basis with individuals living with alcohol use disorder and its consequences. It is appropriate that COPFS staff are trained in relation to the causes and consequences of addiction, including alcohol use disorder, to allow for informed decision-making in the public interest.

Although the role of COPFS is limited in respect of accused persons, when addiction, including to alcohol, has contributed to offending, Prosecutors can consider diversion from prosecution and this may be offered where that would be in the public interest.

COPFS recently hosted a series of online webinars to inform staff of alcohol use disorder, Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and links between addiction and trauma. There are plans for future events and COPFS is exploring opportunities for further engagement with, and input from, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP).

In addition COPFS internal resources available to all staff include general information about alcohol consumption, alcohol dependency and mental health and signposting for general awareness.