Question reference: S6W-07357
- Asked by: Gillian Martin, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 10 March 2022
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Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 March 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what progress it has made towards publishing a National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.
Answer
Today we have published Scotland’s first National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781804350058
We have worked, in partnership with our co-producers COSLA and extensively engaged with Stakeholders from across Health and Social Care to develop the Strategy.
The Strategy outlines our shared vision for the workforce, a sustainable, skilled workforce with attractive career choices where all are respected and valued for the work they do.
This vision supports our tri-partite ambition of Recovery, Growth and Transformation of our Workforce. In the strategy we look at the whole workforce journey and how we can plan for, attract, train, employ and nurture our Health and Social Care Workforce. This is the first time we have articulated a workforce strategy for our Health and Social Care workforce in this way.
We acknowledge the challenges the pandemic has brought not only for our services but also for our workforce and that is why that is why through this strategy we seek to embed a new long-term approach. The strategy expressly commits to increasing our understanding of demographic change in demand for services and details actions we will take to further understand how we can use this information to achieve a more sustainable, skilled workforce and how we can make careers, at all levels, in health and social care more attractive.
The Strategy recognises that although we have seen continued growth in our workforce for the last 10 consecutive years, we know that growth in the workforce alone will not deliver the services the people of Scotland need now and will need into the future. Our tripartite aim supports our NHS Recovery Plan and recovery of our Social Care services and workforce.
The Strategy sets out the actions we will take in partnership with the workforce to achieve our vision.
One such action is to publish our indicative projections for the Health and Social Care Workforce growth later this year. This will allow us to expressly incorporate evidence from 3 year Workforce Plans (which will also be published in due course by Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships) and the forthcoming revised Medium-Term Financial Framework. We will review these projections annually and as more evidence becomes available.
We will review the strategy and progress on the actions therein, annually and in line with any further considerations and evidence which emerges.