Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises that supporting labour market participation and reducing economic inactivity requires a concerted approach from a range of services, including employability, health and childcare. We are currently taking action to support this, and have committed to doing more through our Programme for Government. For example, we have set out plans to improve access to health services by April 2025, and to implement specialist employability support for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions across all 32 local authorities by Summer 2025.

We publish statistics on the impact of our devolved employability services on a quarterly basis. The most recent publication, which covers up to June 2024, shows that Fair Start Scotland has supported 22,875 job starts since April 2018, and that No One Left Behind has supported 20,743 people to enter employment since April 2019. Although Fair Start Scotland has closed to new referrals, those on the service continue to be entitled to the full offer of support.

No One Left Behind reports on the economic status and long-term health conditions of participants and at the point of accessing services, with 14,025 reporting as economically inactive and 16,594 people reporting a long-term health condition. We will begin to include data on the outcomes achieved by those who are economically inactive at the time of entering No One Left Behind in the coming financial year.

Furthermore, the latest ELC census shows that uptake of the funded ELC offer for 3 and 4 year olds remains near-universal at an estimated 95% of children within that age group, and the latest parent survey shows the 74% of parents using funded ELC said that the funded offer enabled them to work or look for work.

The information requested on what the current vacancy rate is for physiotherapists within NHS Borders can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (Vacancy tab).

The 2025-26 Budget provides almost £2.2 billion for social care and integration – including £200 million to reduce waiting lists, help support reduction of delayed discharge and increase capacity– expanding the hospital and home programme to ensure no one waits more than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment or day case treatment by March 2026.

£100 million of this is going on planned care (waiting times) and the remainder is going on a package of improvement and support to improve flow and increase capacity in NHS acute settings.

The Scottish Government provides the policies, frameworks and resources for high quality healthcare, and it is for each individual NHS Board to decide how best to utilise funding, to meet local health needs. There were 3,538.7 WTE working in physiotherapy in NHS Scotland at the end of September 2024. This represents an increase of 27.5% or 762.8 WTE over the last ten years. AHP numbers by NHS board are available at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

Aimmune Therapeutics, the manufacturer of Palforzia®, had indicated an intention to make a resubmission to the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), however to date this has not been received. The decision on whether to submit, and the timing of that submission, is entirely for the manufacturer of the medicine to make. If they do resubmit, information on the specific timelines for the reassessment will be available via the search facility available on the home page of the SMC’s website here. There is a fast-track resubmission option, which reduces the normal assessment timeline.

In the meantime, Health Boards have procedures in place using the Peer Approved Clinical System “PACS Tier Two” process, for clinicians to request the use of licensed medicines on a ‘case-by-case’ basis for individual patients, when the treating clinician considers that there would be significant clinical benefit for a patient.

There are a total of 940 Foundation year 2 doctors working across all Health Boards as of 17 December 2024. This number will fluctuate daily due to trainees going out of programme or completing training. Please see the following table for further information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are responsible for supporting the education, training and development of Advanced Nurse Practitioners.

Foundation Year 2 (FY2) doctors are encouraged to apply for and start specialty training through a range of initiatives that increase awareness and exposure to specific specialties, including educational and career events and targeted Foundation placements/programmes. Additionally, pay enhancements, including an 8.5% pay rise for doctors in training, help to improve the financial appeal of specialty training.

We are working closely with NHS Grampian on the development of a sustainable plan to support improvements in capacity.

We know that system wide capacity challenges are driving pressure on our Emergency Departments. To address this we have a clear plan to reduce delayed discharges, release acute capacity and bring down A&E waiting times.

The plan will be supported by £200 million targeted investment through the 2025-26 Budget, if approved by parliament, with NHS Grampian receiving a share of this funding. We will focus on shifting the balance of care from acute, to community and will bring about this change by ensuring every A&E department has a frailty unit linked to community re-enablement.

We continue to support and monitor all Health Boards to ensure all possible actions are being taken to support services and safeguard patient safety during the winter period. Planning for this winter builds on the effective measures which have supported our health and social care services in previous years.

My officials and I have been meeting regularly with the leadership of NHS Grampian to progress both immediate steps and a sustainable plan to ease capacity pressures with a focus on improving patient flow through the system, preventing SAS ambulance turnaround delays, and discharging as soon as patients are medically fit.