Chamber and committees

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer is putting together a workforce forum to look at the workforce challenges and bringing together stakeholders from pharmacy education and pharmacy service provision to set a strategic workforce plan for the profession.

The Scottish Government will also continue to work with our key partners to ensure that the balance is maintained across the whole pharmacy workforce in the hospital, community, and GP practice sectors.

The Scottish Government workforce integrated plans commits to increasing the pharmacy pre-registration training places by 120 over the next 4 years and we are currently increasing training places available for pharmacy technician training, which will bring more staff in to the profession.

Regulation of the pharmacy profession is applied on a UK basis. However, people arriving in Scotland with pharmacy qualifications from other countries are able to contact NES Pharmacy to explore additional training needs to enable them to practice in Scotland. NES would be able to assist with training gaps, or help to put forward a case to the GPhC.

The Schools of Pharmacy in Scotland have no plans to reintroduce the OSPAP scheme for overseas students.

Since 2015 the Save a Life for Scotland (SALFS) partnership has equipped over 640,000 people in Scotland with the skills to perform CPR. The refreshed strategy seeks to increase this to 1 million people by 2026. This will be achieved through continued partnership working to raise awareness, and the delivery of CPR training across Scotland.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in developing a joint programme to encourage more students, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy, including ensuring the output reaches deprived and remote and rural communities.

In addition, both Schools of Pharmacy work towards the widening access targets set by the Commission on Widening Access for universities to drive forward the delivery of equal access in Scotland.

There are also wider initiatives such as The Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAP). The partnership develops access programmes for adults returning to education, and targets adults who reside in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland and particularly those who have no, few or out of date qualifications. This can help support people with few suitable qualifications to progress to degree level Pharmacy studies.

We welcomed the launch of the Circuit, which aims to improve access to defibrillators across the UK. We would urge all defibrillator guardians to register their defibrillator so that the Scottish Ambulance Service call handlers can direct people to them in incidents of cardiac arrest. Registration of defibrillators in Scotland will build the evidence to support people and organisations in making informed decisions about where to place their life saving device.

Officials across the Scottish Government are working with the bus sector to facilitate solutions to workforce issues through the Labour and Skills Shortages Action Plan, and connecting Local Employability Partnerships who are aware of opportunities in their areas with bus service operators (through the Confederation of Passenger Transport). However, we have no plans to introduce an apprenticeship scheme for bus drivers.

These conditions are usually recorded in an inpatient setting. Public Health Scotland can confirm that the SMR01 dataset contains records where idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and interstitial lung disease are listed as the primary diagnosis.

The focus of Scottish Government remains on pandemic response and supporting the NHS and its entire workforce through this challenging winter and beyond. The wellbeing of the entire workforce of the NHS is a key priority which is why, in the current financial year, the Scottish Government has made over £12 million available to support the wellbeing of the workforce.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care meets regularly with representatives from BMA Scotland, and other trade unions, to discuss and agree actions to support the entire NHS workforce. The next meeting between the Cabinet Secretary and the BMA will take place on 10th January. In addition there is a regular tripartite forum with Scottish Government, BMA and NHS employers which has a focus on all aspects of junior doctors working lives, and agrees and implements actions to improve these.

Through this group several important actions have been implemented including abolishing junior doctors working more than seven days in a row, and ensuring no junior doctors works for seven night shifts in a row.

We have agreed with BMA Scotland that we will work through this group to explore how we can implement the recommendations contained within the Junior Doctors - 48-hour Maximum Working Week (Without Averaging): Expert Working Group Report. This group will also consider the recommendations in the BMA report Supporting Junior Doctor Wellbeing – Now and for the Future .

Following the urgent roundtable meeting I chaired on 4 November, I met with partners and representatives from across the sector on 8 December. The key outcomes were a focus on training and prevention, with the Violence Reduction Unit supporting Police Scotland and Night Time Economy Partners to continue to roll out bystander training to raise awareness for staff to help keep people safe.

Police Scotland’s Strategic Gold Command continues to monitor the situation, and are working closely with third sector and partner organisations, looking into further protective and preventative measures to combat drink spiking, including a public awareness campaign focused on bystanders and perpetrators. We want people to report if they see something suspicious and to step in if they think someone may be at risk or see someone behaving suspiciously.

I would encourage anyone who believes they have had their drink spiked or been assaulted in this way to contact Police Scotland on 101 or in an emergency 999.

We engaged with a range of stakeholders to inform the development of the draft Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery including the people with lived experience who were members of the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain (NACCP).

The structure and membership of the Committee was reviewed in 2020 in order to increase representation of people with lived experience and other key groups with an interest in improving care and support for people with chronic pain. As set out in the updated Terms of Reference, the Committee is advisory in nature, and members were encouraged to seek consensus in providing advice. The Committee met in its new format in February and May 2021 with all members invited to attend these meetings. Members were also asked to provide feedback and responses a number of other relevant request between meetings.

All members of the Committee had the opportunity to freely share their views on the priorities for improving pain management support which were used to inform the development of the draft Framework. Lived experience members of the Committee were provided with additional support in their role in a number of ways including: meetings to gather the views of a wider cohort of people with chronic pain via the Chronic Pain Patient Reference Group; being offered the choice to participate in capacity building sessions; and being offered the opportunity to directly share a summary of the views of people with chronic pain both in advance with officials and during Committee meetings as part of dedicated agenda items. We have also carried out a Scotland-wide survey to better understand the priorities of people with chronic pain and increase the range of voices involved.

All members of the Committee had access to the same information and resources throughout the development of the Framework, and were provided with a draft version in advance of the launch of the public consultation.

As communicated to the Committee previously, we are currently reviewing existing stakeholder engagement processes and structures, including the NACCP, to ensure that they are fit for purpose and can meaningfully support the future delivery and implementation of the Framework once the current public consultation has been completed.