Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has written to NHS Scotland Boards noting the closure of the Managed Voluntary Register previously operated by the Faculty of Physician Associates and encouraging the early registration of Physician Associates (PAs) with the General Medical Council following the introduction of statutory regulation of the role in December 2024.

The Scottish Government continues to engage regularly with the PA workforce, including through dialogue with the Scottish Physician Associate Network which is represented on our national Medical Associate Professionals Programme Board.

The information requested on how many (a) physician associate and (b) other medical associate profession roles were recruited by NHS Scotland in 2023-24 is not centrally held. Information on how many whole-time equivalent physician associates and other medical associates are in post can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence.

The total number of public bodies from 1999 until the present day has been captured in the following table.

Please note that prior to 2010 it was not common practice to capture Executive Agencies, Non-Ministerial Departments, Other Significant National Bodies, or Parliamentary Commissioners & Ombudsmen as part of the list of public bodies. Data prior to 2010 is limited to Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), Advisory NDPBs, Tribunal NDBs, Health Bodies, Nationalised Industries (no longer used) and Public Corporations. The exception to this was in 2007 when a more extensive collation of public bodies was completed as part of a Simplification Programme. This included all of the aforementioned classifications of public bodies as well as 7 proposed public bodies yet to be established. The inclusion of proposed public bodies yet to be established to the total is unique to 2007.

The Scottish Government undertakes a detailed annual workforce planning process to determine intake targets for Initial Teacher Education (ITE), based on data from the annual Summary statistics for schools in Scotland and following consultation with the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group.

To inform this process, we develop and publish an annual statistical model on future teacher number requirements. We also engage with universities throughout the year to collect data and monitor progress of intakes against targets.

As part of December’s education agreement with COSLA, we are also committed to working with local government to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels in 2025-26, and make meaningful progress towards reducing class contact time for teachers. Medium and long-term joint workforce planning will take into account the importance of responding to these issues, including different local needs.

Improving employment opportunities for Scotland’s teaching workforce will also be a key feature of the Education Assurance Board, that we are working with COSLA to establish, noting that the recruitment and deployment of teachers is the responsibility of local authorities.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with musculoskeletal conditions can access the best possible care and support.

While there are no current plans to develop a musculoskeletal digital pathway, the government has commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to oversee a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group. This group includes multidisciplinary representatives from all Health Boards providing rheumatology services.

Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with the Chief Operating Officer and Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to assess performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. For island Health Boards, these meetings typically take place every two months.

The Scottish Government continues to identify opportunities to remove unnecessary duplication across the public bodies landscape.

In July 2024, public bodies were asked to provide information to identify opportunities for delivering services in alternative ways and to increase efficiencies across corporate functions. A report of the findings from this commission was published on 15 November 2024, and can be found at Public Bodies Expenditure: Supplementary Report of Data Commission - gov.scot.

A key strand of the Public Service Reform (PSR) programme is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our public services for the people of Scotland. As part of this, we continue to engage with public bodies to progress the programme and deliver long term fiscal sustainability.

Four Scottish Government civil servants are working on delivering the actions set out in the Artificial intelligence strategy: trustworthy, ethical and inclusive.

(a) The Scottish Government engages with the General Medical Council (GMC) on its regulatory functions as a matter of routine. Many of those operational discussions will have touched upon issues relating to physician associates and anaesthesia associates since the decision was taken that the GMC would be their regulator. The answer to FOI requests 202400422610 and 202400441146, published on the Scottish Government website, provides information on written communications between the Scottish Government and the GMC.

Surgical Care Practitioners, also a Medical Associate Profession, are not regulated by the GMC.

(b) The GMC has no functions in respect of the design of services in NHS Scotland. Health Boards are responsible for determining the services appropriate to the needs of their local populations, and the skills mix necessary to ensure their delivery.

The Scottish Government is supportive of a gradual and carefully managed expansion of physician associate (PA) and anaesthesia associate (AA) roles, underpinned by robust evidence of the benefit that can be derived from these roles in specific settings and contexts.

In order to achieve this, we have established a national Programme Board to advise on key aspects of the roles and NHS Scotland’s approach to their deployment. This work builds on action already undertaken to introduce statutory regulation of the roles which we consider is vital for patient safety. GMC regulation has, for the first time, introduced UK-wide standards for education, training and professional practice with meaningful consequences when these are not met.

Physician Associates (PAs) are a long-established profession within the NHS Scotland workforce. The Scottish Government continues to engage regularly with the PA profession, including through dialogue with the Scottish Physician Associate Network which is represented on our national Medical Associate Professionals Programme Board. The Scottish PA Network also participates in the national MAPs Stakeholder Group, with a representative from the network acting as co-chair of the Group.