Chamber and committees

NHS 24 will have recruited an additional 41.81 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) staff by 1 December 2022. These additional posts support the recruitment priorities set out in the Winter Resilience Plan.

The following table shows the breakdown by role of the total number of WTE staff joining NHS 24 through to 1 December 2022. The role of Call Operator was re-created in September 2022 to supplement NHS 24's call handling capacity.

The Scottish Government is not removing funding for Primary Care implementation plans. Reserves that have been built up over four years by HSCPs are now being used so that recurring funding for recruiting multi-disciplinary teams can be maintained. It is prudent to reinvest these public funds given that these reserves have been steadily accumulating over a number of years, especially at a time of considerable inflation. At the same time, we have increased the recurring funding for primary care improvement to £170m in 2022-23.

Reserves held by Integration Authorities, comprising Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF) funding from previous years, have been utilised in funding this year's PCIF allocation, resulting in a one-off benefit. The distribution of these reserves is set out in the following table:

NHS 24 has received £15.1 million to support improvements that lead to sustainable delivery across the Redesign of Urgent Care pathway and contribute to the wider ambition to reduce attendances at acute care.

This funding is largely committed to the recruitment of additional workforce to support the NHS 24 -111 service which includes increasing their call handler and clinical supervisor capacity which will support improvements in call answering times.

Funding will also be used to further develop public information through NHS Inform, develop public messaging about access to services and improve data sharing and digital support to optimise the continuity and co-ordination of care.

113 paramedics will be recruited as a result of the investment of £45 million by the Scottish Government, as outlined in the Winter Resilience Plan.

The requested information on how many whole time equivalent radiographers who were fully qualified to undertake MRI scans working in the NHS in the financial year (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20, (c) 2020-21, (d) 2021-22 and 2022-23 to date, broken down by NHS board is not centrally available.

Information on how many whole time equivalent Radiographers (Diagnosis and Therapy) working in the NHS since 2012, broken down by NHS Board can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

Table 1 presents the latest published number of patients covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) that were waiting within an inpatient or day case setting in Scotland at 30 June 2022, and the number waiting over two years (104 weeks), 2 years and six months (130 weeks), and 3 years (156 weeks) for an Orthopaedics procedure.

Table 1 - Number of patients waiting for an inpatient or day case admission for Orthopaedics by length of wait in NHSScotland, at 30 June 2022

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12117 on‎ 28 November 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 requested information on how many whole time equivalent staff working for NHS 24 in the financial year (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20, (c) 2020-21 and (d) 2021-22, including a breakdown by (i) call handlers and (ii) nurse advisers is not centrally available.

Information on how many whole time equivalent staff working for NHS 24 since 2012 can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The Emergency Budget Review (EBR) sets out in-year redistribution of funding within the Health and Social Care Portfolio. Future years funding will be set out in each year’s Scottish Budget, with the 2023-24 Budget to be published on 15 December 2022.

The most recent estimate for whole time equivalent of GPs can be found in the General Practice Workforce Survey 2019 , published by Public Health Scotland in October 2021. This estimated that there were 3,613 GP whole time equivalents (WTE) in Scotland in 2019. This is an increase from an estimated 3,520 WTE in 2017, with 8 sessions per week equating to one WTE.

The latest data on GP WTE is scheduled to be published by Public Health Scotland, they have pre-announced publication of this analysis report for 29 November.