Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has a number of incentives already in place, amongst which is the Scottish Distant Island Allowance (SDIA), an addition to salary which supports staff with the costs of travelling to and from the mainland. NHS staff who work in the majority of Scotland’s islands are eligible to receive SDIA.

There is also the Scottish Government funded ‘Golden Hello’ scheme, administered by NHS Scotland Boards, which provides up to £10,000 to every GP taking up an eligible post in a rural area.

To attract dentists to rural areas we have made available a range of grants and allowances including the recruitment and retention allowance, which allows new trainee dentists practicing in eligible areas, to qualify for a ‘Golden Hello’ payment of up to £37,500 in the first three years of practice.

ScotGEM offers a unique four-year programme tailored to meet the current and future needs of NHS Scotland with a focus on rural medicine, healthcare improvement and developing interest in General Practice. ScotGEM students are eligible to apply for and receive a ‘Return of Service’ bursary of £4,000 per annum which commits them to working for NHS Scotland for the corresponding number of years following graduation. In addition to the return of service bursary, the Scottish Government pays the tuition fees for eligible students, offering an attractive package for potential applicants.

In addition to the Scottish Government funded incentives, staff being recruited to posts in rural and island areas may also be eligible for relocation expenses, the decision to offer relocation expenses lies solely with boards.

In order to provide high quality services to all patients NHS Scotland plans and delivers some services on a national or regional basis. This is particularly the case for highly specialist treatments and those with low numbers of cases.

We have convened an NHS Board-led working group which is working to develop a framework for delivery of health services in rural and island areas and considering how best to deliver the right care in the right place

The group will develop a model with services provided as local as possible and specialised as necessary in order to ensure equity of outcomes. As part of the work, the group will seek to define what the "core services" are that should be provided locally, balancing these with the need for specialised care which may be provided outside the local area where clinically appropriate.

The Scottish Government's Transport to Health delivery plan aims to ensure access to healthcare facilities is fully considered within regional and local planning, including planning for our rural communities.

There is presently no national community audiology service. We are sponsoring the RNID ‘Near You’ scheme in partnership with the NHS in five Health Board areas. Benefits include locally-recruited staff, trained volunteers, savings of circa 500 clinical hours and 4,600 patient miles per year, and provision of domiciliary care.

Remote consultations are now part of free universal NHS funded eye examinations. The Government is also in the process of rolling out new enhanced services including the Community Glaucoma Service. No specific assessment has been made of the impact this has had on rural areas, but these commitments support patients being treated closer to home.

We have already invested £30 million to reduce waiting lists that built up throughout the pandemic. This funding is being targeted at a series of national and local plans to reduce backlogs by maximising the use of local and national resources across Scotland. As part of this, we have allocated additional funding to Gynaecology services which we expect to deliver around 3,500 new outpatient appointments.

The Budget we set out on 4 December 2024 will throw the weight of the government behind performance improvements with almost £200 million to reduce waiting lists and help support reduction of delayed discharge. By March 2026, we expect no one to be waiting longer than 12 months for a new outpatient, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

With regards to the average wait times across all boards compared with waiting times in rural areas such as Aberdeenshire, this information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government the member may wish to contact NHS Grampian directly for information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Operational decisions on matters such as this are for Police Scotland with oversight from the Scottish Police Authority. You may wish to contact them directly.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to establish the Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS) in November 2021 to support workforce capacity across NHS Scotland and to ensure it has the right people, in the right place at the right time. The CWS works collaboratively with health boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and other key stakeholders to support the implementation of innovative workforce initiatives which help tackle priority supply challenges. Over the next year, CWS will be leading work connecting with health boards such as Public Health Scotland, and NHS Grampian, with a view to understanding how population health, service demand, and workforce supply data, can be used more effectively in workforce planning.

NES have a range of resources and training programmes in place to support rural practitioners across Scotland including increasing the opportunities to train in rural Scotland, the GP Rural Fellowship and the new GMC Rural and Remote Health (unscheduled and urgent care) Credential.

We also commissioned the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care (NCRRHC) in 2023, again delivered by NES. The purpose of NCRRHC is to co-ordinate work to improve remote, rural and island healthcare recruitment and retention; to increase access to training; and to develop new models of service delivery, which are focused on improved outcomes for rural and island communities.

Further, the Scottish Government has convened a Remote, Rural and Islands Task and Finish Group which is developing a framework and sustainable operating model to plan sustainable services for rural and island communities, which will include workforce considerations such as recruitment, retention and training.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering equitable and sustainable healthcare services across NHS Scotland through a comprehensive reform agenda. This includes a renewed approach for planning for NHS Scotland to ensure that appropriate clinically led planning for services is undertaken at a level which is best aligned to the size of population who make use of those services, and that this is undertaken in a collaborative and coherent way, with appropriate national leadership. These initiatives aim to deliver the highest quality outcomes for Scotland's population, ensuring healthcare services are equitable, effective, and future-proofed.

As part of this broader NHS reform, work is currently underway to develop and implement target operating models for NHS Scotland’s oncology services. These models are designed to ensure the delivery of excellent care that is equitably accessible to everyone across Scotland, regardless of their geographic location.

In addressing disparities in cardiology services, the Scottish Government’s Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) outlines specific actions to ensure timely and equitable access to diagnosis, treatment, and care for all individuals with suspected heart disease. Building on this, in 2024, we collaborated with clinicians across Scotland to establish agreed care pathways for cardiology. Combined with data from the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme, these pathways will help identify priority areas for improvement and drive meaningful change in heart disease care delivery.

An NHS Board-led working group has also been convened to develop a framework for safe, quality and sustainable healthcare services across our rural and island communities. This work aims to develop a balanced model, with services provided as local as possible and specialised as necessary in order to ensure equity of outcomes.

I refer the Member to the answers given in questions S6W-33618 and S6W-33681 on 27 January 2025. In addition, I also refer the member to the General Ophthalmic Services Statement which is available at: https://www.eyes.nhs.scot/media/1765/statement-of-gos-remuneration-and-cpd-allowances-241023.pdf

The Scottish Government provides an additional fee to practices for the provision of domiciliary care to eligible patients.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Women’s Health is key priority for this government which is why Scotland was the first country in the UK to publish an ambitious Women’s Health Plan in August 2021. Timely access to gynaecology services will remain a priority as we continue to develop our Women’s Health Plan.

The Budget we set out on 4 December 2024 will throw the weight of the government behind performance improvements with almost £200 million to reduce waiting lists and help support reduction of delayed discharge. By March 2026, we expect no one to be waiting longer than 12 months for a new outpatient, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

We have already invested £30 million to reduce waiting lists that built up throughout the pandemic. This funding is being targeted at a series of national and local plans to reduce backlogs by maximising the use of local and national resources across Scotland. As part of this, we have allocated additional funding to Gynaecology services which we expect to deliver around 3,500 new outpatient appointments.

Throughout NHS Scotland, patients who require urgent or emergency surgery will always be given clinical priority as determined by the clinicians involved in their treatment and care.

In the event that a patient requires transport to an appropriate facility for treatment, there are several resources available including the Scottish Ambulance Service’s patient transport service for scheduled care, or emergency ambulance for life threatening incidents. Scotland’s rural communities are also supported by air assets from the Scottish Ambulance Service (helicopters in Inverness and Glasgow), Scottish Charity Air Ambulance (helicopters in Aberdeen and Perth) and HM Coastguard helicopters based at Prestwick, Inverness, Stornoway and Sumburgh in Shetland.