Chamber and committees

In 2025-26, the Scottish Government allocated more than £150 million additional funding to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for planned care. This funding delivered thousands more appointments, operations and procedures in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25 and saw waits of over a year decrease by 49% for inpatient and day-case and by 76.7% for new outpatient appointments between 31 July 2025 and 31 July 2026.

This shows our plan is working and delivering for the people of Scotland and, although demand pressures remain, we are seeing the tangible impact of our investment.

We are determined to continue building on this momentum and have invested an additional £100 million this year to build on the progress made in the 2025-26 NHS Operational Improvement Plan. In July, the First Minister also announced a further £90 million to support those waiting the longest for treatment and help to create more capacity within our wider healthcare system.

The Programme for Government (PfG), published on 1 September, outlines our intention to continue investing in elective services over the next 5 years to grow capacity as we work towards meeting the 26 week wait target by the end of 2031, ahead of recovering the 12 week Treatment Time Guarantee and New Outpatient standard.

We are transforming health and care services so that people in Scotland receive the best treatment, care and support to stay healthy, independent and connected to their communities for as long as possible.

We will simplify the NHS by replacing the current 14 territorial Health Boards with two Strategic Health Boards that will cover the East and West of the country. These two new boards will be responsible for the planning and delivery of NHS services across the whole of Scotland, with particular focus on making sure provision best represents local communities, particularly our rural and island communities. Within this planning framework, the Strategic Health Boards East and West will support and oversee planning and performance, identifying further opportunities to increase capacity, improve access to services and reduce waiting times.

Radiographers have an integral role in delivering cancer care. The number of qualified radiographers has increased by 3.5% in the last year, and 14.5% over the last five years. We recognise, however, that there are currently 141.8 WTE qualified radiography vacancies across Scotland.

The Scottish Government will work with NHS Boards and other partners in understanding where and how to increase the number of radiographers. Radiographers are involved in the diagnosis and treatment of a range of conditions, including cancer.

While the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including the funding and location of staffing are the responsibility of NHS Boards. We expect NHS boards to plan and provide safe, effective, and high-quality care, in line with their statutory service provision and workforce planning responsibilities. The Scottish Government has therefore not set targets for radiographer numbers year on year.

Scottish Government is providing record investment as set out in this year’s budget of almost £22.5 billion to health and social care in 2026-27.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-02818 of 11 September 2026. 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 National Orthopaedic Plan is currently being finalised and will be published following completion of the necessary governance and ministerial approval processes. An announcement on publication will be made in due course.

The primary purpose of the National Orthopaedic Plan is to support NHS Boards to work more collectively to improve access to orthopaedic services, reduce variation, and make best use of available capacity across Scotland. Detailed modelling of the impact on activity levels, including additional activity delivered through implementation of the Plan, is ongoing and will be set out as appropriate following publication.

Funding arrangements to support implementation of the National Orthopaedic Plan are currently being considered as part of ongoing planning work. Further details will be set out in due course.

Decisions regarding recruitment and workforce planning to meet population needs are the responsibility of individual NHS Boards.

Scottish Government officials have regular engagement with NHS Boards, including NHS Fife, regarding the development of specialist support services for people with long COVID, ME/CFS and related conditions through the recurring £4.5 million annual funding provided for these services. These discussions have focused on service development, workforce capacity and delivery arrangements rather than decisions relating to specific posts or vacancies.

The recurring funding provides Boards with flexibility to recruit staff and develop sustainable models of care that reflect local circumstances and workforce availability.

We remain committed to improving care and support for people living with ME/CFS across Scotland through the ongoing development of specialist services and collaborative approaches where appropriate.

Any new funding commitments or changes to existing funding will be discussed and agreed through COSLA formal financial governance process which requires agreed recommendations from the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group and political agreement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA political Leaders.

The Scottish Government expects NHS Boards to ensure that staff are appropriately trained and developed in line with the Staff Governance Standard and relevant professional requirements.

To support this, we wrote to NHS Boards and General Practitioners in July 2022 to raise awareness of the NICE guideline on ME/CFS and highlight key changes in practice. The Scottish Government has also funded Action for ME and partners to develop and disseminate an online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module on ME/CFS for health and social care professionals and has supported activity to promote awareness and uptake of the resource.

Through our ongoing engagement with NHS Boards on specialist support services for long COVID, ME/CFS and related conditions, we continue to emphasise the importance of services being informed by relevant clinical guidance, including the NICE guideline on ME/CFS.

Responsibility for workforce training and professional development rests with NHS Boards as employers. While the Scottish Government continues to promote awareness of relevant clinical guidance and educational resources it does not mandate specific continuing professional training requirements for individual conditions.

We continue to make significant financial investment in health and social care services. The 2026-27 Budget invests £22.5 billion in health and social care, including £17.6 billion in NHS Boards, £2.3 billion for social care and £2.4 billion in primary care. The Health and Social Care Improving Flow Plan is about ensuring that investment delivers maximum benefit by improving how services work together and shifting care towards prevention, community services and home-based care where appropriate. Delivery will build on that existing investment, while detailed implementation planning will continue alongside normal financial planning processes.

Improving A&E performance is a key priority of this Plan. We recognise that A&E performance is influenced by pressures across the whole pathway, including delayed discharge, hospital occupancy, ambulance handovers and community capacity. For that reason, the Plan focuses on improving flow across the entire health and care system, to support sustainable improvement in A&E performance.

In line with the commitment to tackle corridor care, we will work with Health Boards and Public Health Scotland to ensure we are taking the necessary steps to deliver improvements. This will include considering collecting data on patients who are being cared for in non-standard areas, such as hospital corridors. This consideration will be based on clinical advice.

Delayed discharge remains a key priority and the plan sets out the action we are taking to support this including strengthening the adoption of Discharge Without Delay, Home First and Discharge to Assess approaches.

To support our aim of a more connected system, with simpler routes to care, we are introducing digital appointment functionality through MyCare.scot. The first phase, planned for 2027-28, will allow patients to view secondary care appointment information and related communications online. Over time, the service will expand to include appointment management, self-management, two-way communication to support services such as e-triage, and remote monitoring. The Digital Health and Care Record will also support secure access to a more complete health and care record across organisations, while MyCare.scot will provide the public-facing route for people to access their information and services.