Chamber and committees

All of the £830.6 million allocated to Additional Support for Social Care in the 2022-23 budget has been included in the block grant allocation provided to local authorities. The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently and the information requested on spend would therefore require to be requested from local authorities.

Funding of £18 billion is provided for health and social care in 2022-23.

As set out in the Emergency Budget Review (2 November), in common with the overall Scottish Budget, the Health and Social Care budget is facing unpreceded challenges as a result of inflation and the ongoing impacts of Covid and Brexit.

It has therefore been essential to review health and social care spending, with £400 million reprioritised and fully retained within the Portfolio, to ensure that it is directed where it is needed most, including supporting enhanced pay offers.

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 Scottish Government recognised in 2021 that partial implementation of the pharmacotherapy and community treatment and care services, on a national level, meant that general practice was facing a difficult winter without all of the support Scottish Government and the BMA had agreed it should have in 2018.

GP practices will receive £10 million in Sustainability Payments this year in addition to their regular funding (Global Sum and Income & Expenses Guarantees) of £696,549,007, to which an uplift will be applied backdated to April 2022.

We also now have more than 3,220 healthcare professionals recruited to support general practice since 2018 and are committed to investing at least £170 million a year on growing primary care multi-disciplinary teams.

Junior Doctors are a valuable part of the NHS Scotland workforce. The Scottish Government has implemented a 4.5% pay uplift this year which is in line with the independent DDRB recommendations. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is aware of Junior Doctors concerns in relation to this pay award and wishes to ensure fairness across the NHS pay system.

The Scottish Government has been working with BMA and NHS Employers to take forward the Expert Working Group recommendation and key priorities within the BMA Wellbeing report. A Joint Statement on Junior Doctor Health and Wellbeing was agreed between all parties on 1 June 2022 and work is now underway to implement this important work.

Health Board expenditure and staff numbers are set out in Annual Accounts which are available on Board's websites.

With regards to reserves, Health Boards are not permitted to hold reserves.

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.

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