Chamber and committees

As part of the £145,000 funding we announced earlier in March, we are in the process of commissioning research into support services in Scotland. The analysis and research will help us to understand what support is needed to help the people affected by historical adoption practices.

We have also introduced a working group to assist with the implementation of peer support groups where we are working with partners to scope and develop the support service.

CalMac Ferries ltd is not listed as a Relevant Authority in the Islands (Scotland) Act, and is therefore not subject to duties under the Act.

The Scottish Government does not currently have plans to conduct an under 16 cancer patient survey. The Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer published a strategy in September 2021, ‘ Collaborative and Compassionate Cancer Care ’, which commits to improving services nationally and supporting a consistent approach to care and treatment across the country for children and young people up to the age of 25. This strategy was developed through consultation with service users, parents and carers, partner organisations and NHS Scotland staff.

The requested information on retirement numbers is not centrally held. NHS Education for Scotland publishes annual data on joiners/leavers, but this information is not available by reason for leaving or destination.

Information on joiners/leavers by staff group for each financial year can be found (turnover tab) here: https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/data-and-reports/official-workforce-statistics/all-official-statistics-publications/01-march-2022-workforce/dashboards/nhsscotland-workforce/?pageid=6429

Health Boards are responsible for conducting pre-retirement interviews and no data is held on this centrally. The Scottish Government would expect Boards to ensure that managers engage with staff at all points within their career as a matter of good practice, including prior to retirement to discuss staff experience and career journeys.

The Scottish Government's 'Supporting the work-life balance' PIN Policy contains provisions for supporting staff approaching retirement, including the opportunity to attend a pre-retirement course where they will have access to a wide range of information to support their retirement planning: https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2015/07/supporting-worklife-balance-partnership-information-network-policies/documents/supporting-work-life-balance-pin-policy-july-2015/supporting-work-life-balance-pin-policy-july-2015/govscot%3Adocument/00481986.pdf

Following receipt of the Royal College of Nursing's recent 'Nursing Workforce in Scotland' report, I was fortunate to attend a roundtable event on 30 March, hosted by the RCN, to hear directly from nurses on their priorities and concerns. These discussions will inform work with Health Boards to explore what more can be done to ensure even greater workforce flexibility.

This is a matter for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Highland. The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information: Health Boards are responsible for making Golden Hello payments to eligible GPs.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information: Health Boards are responsible for making Golden Hello payments to eligible GPs.

Health Boards make these payments from their shares of the wider Primary Medical Services allocation which covers all payments to GP contractors.

The Scottish Government continues to invest in the registered nurse role across community, social care and primary care settings. We have introduced in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland a funded scheme to enable former nurses and midwives to complete a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) approved Return to Practice (RtP) programme and to re-enter the professional register across all fields of practice.

We have also invested over £45m since 2021 to train and introduce into the workforce an additional 375 nurses within the district nursing service. This investment supports the shift in balance of care into community settings by delivering more care in homes and reducing rates of admission to the acute hospital service.

The Scottish Government launched a national marketing campaign in November 2021 to attract more people with the right skills and values to the social care sector including nurses for social care settings. This campaign concluded in February 2022. In addition, the Scottish Government is working with the Department for Work and Pensions to host a series of sector-specific job fairs across Scotland during April and May to support recruitment efforts to all role types, including nurses, within the sector.

We have been working with NHS Boards to increase the use of international recruitment to alleviate pressures and fill key roles by supporting a number of measures. We have already provided £1m across NHS Scotland to build capacity within recruitment teams and a further £1m to fund International Recruitment Lead Posts. We are also recruiting at least 200 registered nurses from overseas with funding of £4.5m available to Health Boards to take forward this recruitment.

On 11 March 2022, we published the National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy.

As part of the Strategy, we have committed to taking forward specific actions to improve how we gather, use and assess NHS Workforce data. This includes taking steps to improve the demographic data we collect and the analysis we undertake of data obtained at different geographic levels within our health and social care system.

The Strategy further commits us to taking forward complementary actions to improve workforce planning capacity and capability within our health boards and health and social care partnerships (HSCPs).

New guidance has already been communicated to health boards and HSCPs to support the production of demand-led 3-year workforce plans, supported by local systems’ workforce data. Later this year we will also publish new staffing projections for health and social care.

Complementary data systems and data improvement work is taking place, as part of the Implementation Programme being established to support delivery of the Workforce Strategy. We have undertaken to publish annual updates outlining progress with the Strategy’s implementation, in support of our tri-partite ambition to achieve long-term workforce sustainability through recovery, growth and service transformation.

Between December 2019 to March 2022 Transport Scotland undertook regular meetings with trade unions, staff representatives and passenger/transport groups at which the subject of ScotRail services moving to a Scottish Government owned operator i.e. ScotRail Trains Limited from 1 April 2022 would have been discussed.

The former Minister for Transport, Mr Dey, met with the collective Rail Trade Unions twice and individually with them once, with the exception of RMT who declined to meet at the time. There was a third collective meeting schedule to take place on the day Mr Dey resigned.

I have had one collective Rail Trade Unions meeting and have held five individual meetings with Trade Union representatives. Public ownership was discussed at all these meetings along with other issues such as pay negotiations and industrial relations for example.

The former Minister for Transport also met with Transport Focus and I met with Transport Focus on 21 April where I provided an update on the transition from Abellio ScotRail to ScotRail Trains Ltd.