Chamber and committees

The funding model for community optometry services is entirely demand-led and directly funded by the Scottish Government. Patients are entitled to receive a community optometry service in whichever Health Board they choose.

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.

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.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33527 on 27 January 2025. 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

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33681 on 27 January 2025. 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

The Scottish Government has funded free universal NHS-funded eye examinations since 2006, and is committed to maintaining this policy - the only UK nation in which this is the case. The Scottish Government takes the view that this policy is a fundamental feature of ensuring equitable access to NHS eye examinations.

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.

It is for the Chief Constable, working with the working with the Scottish Police Authority, to determine how to allocate its budget to meet policing priorities including any safeguards any criminality arising from protests. In 2025-26, the Scottish Government will increase police funding to £1.62 billion to support police capacity and capability. This includes almost £57 million in additional resource funding – an increase of 4% compared to 2024-25 published budget.

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.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. We would advise the Member to contact relevant Health Boards for this data.