Chamber and committees

I have portfolio responsibility for this work.

We have committed to begin roll out of the financial health check to low income families in 2018. There are currently 140,000 families with children in relative poverty who would be eligible for a financial health check and uptake of this service will be closely monitored once launched.

The new GP contract, backed by investment of £110 million in 2018-19 and jointly developed with the BMA, will help cut doctors’ workload and ensure GPs are able to spend more time with patients most in need of their skills. This will be achieved by supporting Health Boards, Integrated Authorities and GPs to work together to redesign services so that the wider primary care multi-disciplinary team take on services previously carried out by GPs where it is safe, sustainable, and improves to patient care to do so.

Services to be delivered as a priority include providing community Links workers to patients in GP practices or clusters of practices, who will help with signposting to services; assessment and personal planning; and supporting people to take up services in other organisations.

The GP Contract is supported by a Memorandum of Understanding between the Scottish Government, the BMA, Health Boards and Integrated Authorities, which sets out the principles and priorities of how services will be redesigned locally to deliver the priorities of the new GMS contract over the next three years. While the focus for Links workers remains on the areas of greatest deprivation, we also aim to meet the needs of those who have complex conditions and rural communities by supporting Integration Authorities to develop these services locally, over the course of the next three years.

We commissioned Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) to run a pilot Financial Health Check service for older people throughout November 2017. Fourteen bureaux took part across Scotland and undertook a range of different activities to attract interest in and then deliver the Financial Health Check over the month-long period. The evaluation of the pilots carried out by CAS showed a good level of financial gain for many older people who used the service.

Further, our Every Child, Every Chance: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan contains a specific commitment to launch a Financial Health Check Guarantee for low income families with children. This programme will begin rollout in 2018, based on learning from the CAS evaluation.

As outlined in Every Child, Every Chance: The Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, we will begin roll-out of a financial health check for families on low income in 2018. We are currently considering options for the design and delivery of this work alongside how to build on the pilot financial health check service for older people delivered in November 2017.

We are currently considering options for the roll-out of the financial health check. Any procurement process we undertake will adhere to the Scottish Government Procurement Policy Manual: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2006/05/spdpolicymanual .

This is an operational matter for NHS Lanarkshire however I would expect all NHS Boards and their delivery partners to engage locally regarding any service changes.

This is an operational matter for NHS Lanarkshire.

This is an operational matter for NHS Lanarkshire.

This is an operational matter for NHS Lanarkshire.