Chamber and committees

Numbers of Nurses and Midwives in Scotland have increased by 12.1% (or 6,850.9 WTE) in this Government, since September 2006.

As a result of efforts to enhance staffing capacity during the Covid-19 pandemic, Nursing and Midwifery numbers have increased by 4.9% since December 2019 (60,651.0 to 63,634.1 WTE).

Despite consistent NHS workforce growth over nine years, it is common for vacancies to increase in the quarter to June. This period coincides with end of financial year retirements and directly precedes autumn graduate recruitment.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, we have invested in significantly increasing the NHS workforce; and have supported Boards to extensively redeploy staff to respond to changing clinical priorities.

We are also investing £11 million in new recruitment activity and in the creation of a National Centre for Workforce Supply. The Centre will offer NHS Boards expert advice on labour market intelligence and coordinate recruitment campaigns, providing vital additional support to health board recruitment teams. It will take full account of numbers of vacancies within Boards in doing so.

We have also sustained our investment in medical and nursing education during the course of the pandemic, with record numbers commencing training in 2020-21 (4,206 for nursing and 1,138 for medicine); and that number is set to rise further this autumn.

The Scottish Government has been working closely with Health Boards to ensure they will be ready to assume responsibility of routine vaccination programmes by the April 2022 deadline of the Vaccination Transformation Programme. Health Boards regularly report on their progress in transferring vaccination programmes and attend regular meetings with Scottish Government officials, ensuring appropriate oversight of plans, and providing a forum for any issues or challenges to be addressed.

21 September 2021

Stephen Kerr (Central Scotland) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it had with representatives of the theatre sector ahead of its announcement regarding its plan to introduce COVID-19 vaccine passports at certain events.

Scottish Government officials are engaging with representatives of the theatre sector through various forums. The Federation of Scottish Theatres (FST) is a member of the Events Industry Advisory Group, where these plans have been discussed, most recently at its 25 August meeting. Representatives from individual theatres have also been involved in roundtable meetings between Ministers and those sectors where these proposals will apply. Further roundtable meetings are planned to help shape the proposals ahead of their implementation. In addition, officials have discussed the proposals with representatives of theatres in Edinburgh through the Edinburgh Cultural Venues Group, most recently on 8 September.

It is expected that these proposals will apply primarily to unseated venues, or venues with audiences of more than 10,000 people, which means that the majority of theatres in Scotland will not be affected.

Prior to introducing plans for Covid-19 vaccine passports at certain events, the Scottish Government consulted the Scottish Football Association on the potential operational issues which would need to be considered in delivering a workable and proportionate vaccine certification scheme.

Since the Parliamentary vote, the Scottish Government has been consulting directly with impacted football clubs, and will continue to do so, to further discuss these operational issues with a view to arriving at workable solutions to allow implementation from 1 October.

The Scottish Government is continuing to support Health Boards to develop and implement their plans to transfer routine vaccination delivery from GPs under the Vaccination Transformation Programme. Health Boards are making progress at varying stages, with some Boards having already completed the transfer of vaccination services. The Scottish Government and Health Boards have agreed that the programme will be completely rolled out by the deadline of April 2022.

The definition of race underpinning the Education Scotland resource Promoting and Developing Race Equality and Anti-Racist Education: An Overview is the definition present in the Equality Act 2010. This definition encompasses white ethnic groups, including white Irish. The experience of Irish people is also referenced in the Changing the Race Equality Paradigm in Education Scotland’s Understanding race and racism wakelet for practitioners. An Education Scotland website to support the publication of their resource, to go live by the end of September, will be regularly updated to include resources for practitioners relating to different minority ethnic groups who experience discrimination.

To relieve some pressure on acute services, NHS Highland took the decision to pause their orthopaedic elective programme through August, and the board are continuing to treat patients on the basis of their clinical urgency and in line with the Clinical Prioritisation Framework.

Last year the Cabinet Secretary for Health and sport published a national Clinical Prioritisation Framework for Supporting Elective Care across NHS Scotland. This Framework sets out the key principles that NHS Boards should follow when considering decisions around prioritising cases on their elective care waiting lists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The expectation is that NHS Boards will follow these principles to categorise patients based on their particular clinical needs, ensuring patients with the greatest need are treated quickest.

We are working proactively with health boards to manage pressures and take rapid action to support increased capacity, including expedited recruitment, flexible deployment of existing staffing and supporting mutual aid across the system.

Moving forward, our NHS Recovery Plan sets out commitments over the next 5 years, backed by over £1 billion of funding, to support an increase in inpatient, daycase, and outpatient activity to address backlogs, which will be supported by the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care.

To date, the Scottish Government has provided more than £2 billion to NHS Boards and Integration Authorities, with NHS Western Isles receiving £7.7 million, to address pressures arising from Covid-19.

We will continue to assess the impact of Covid-19, and its financial implications for our health service, in order to ensure that frontline services receive the support that they need throughout the pandemic.

There has been no discussion on the devolution of health and safety legislation to the Scottish Government since the subject was addressed by the Smith Commission which suggested the parties involved : “…review the functions and operations of the Health and Safety Executive in Scotland and consider how the future requirements to best serve the people of Scotland could be delivered operationally whilst remaining within a reserved health and safety legislative framework”

This joint-review by the UK Government, Scottish Government, and Local Authorities was published in August 2015 by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The Scottish Government continues to represent and advocate for Scottish interests in this area, and uses its devolved healthcare powers to provide support to individuals and to inform organisations of their responsibilities towards their employees through its existing Health and Work Strategy .

There is ongoing liaison work with the Health and Safety Executive, Department for Work and Pensions, and relevant groups within Scotland such as the Scottish Trades Union Congress in order for the Scottish Government to positively impact the delivery of reserved legislation and best represent the needs of its people.

The following table shows the number of people who attended an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening appointment between January 2019 and July 2021. The programme was paused between 30 March 2020 and 6 July 2020 and when screening resumed it prioritised higher-risk screening participants.

It is important to note that the data below is management information and has not been subject to the necessary quality checks carried out for an official publication.