Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13517 on 24 January 2023. 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

To date, the NHSScotland ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies Programme has refreshed the following PIN policies and process:

• Attendance
• Bullying and Harassment
• Capability
• Conduct
• Grievance
• Workforce Policies Investigation Process

In addition, the NHSScotland Whistleblowing Policy that includes the National Whistleblowing Standards was published in April 2021.

Following a pause due to the pandemic, the ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies programme of work formally restarted in June 2022. The review of the suite of Supporting the Work-Life Balance Policies that include flexible working arrangements and the Homeworking Policy (now known as the NHSScotland Flexible Work Location Policy) is currently at an advanced stage.

The programme policy development schedule is reviewed at each stage to enable response to service pressures and prioritised policy needs. Requests for new policies are considered by the ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies Programme Board.

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should make assessments of changing local service demand as part of analysing any local staffing gaps and pressure points, alongside setting out the actions that health boards and health and social care partnerships are taking to address identified issues.

The Scottish Government has worked alongside Higher Education Institutions, NHS Boards, NHS Education Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, and the Scottish Funding Council to agree controlled intakes for nursing, midwifery and paramedic science programmes and those discussions included multi-year intakes. An announcement on the details of the commissioned intakes for these subjects will be made shortly.

Humza Yousaf: ‘Progress has been made with delivery of this commitment, stage one of the design of the portal has been completed and NHS Education Scotland have been commissioned to bring together staff equality networks across NHS Scotland to discuss proposed content, in connection with sharing resources, information and support.’

The Scottish Government is working in conjunction with NES to support the identification of emerging technologies to assist the gap between service demand and capacity within the health and care system, particularly around staff training to enhance skills. Examples include:

• Online training provision within the Scotland Deanery.
• Train-the-trainer for “simulation” training across a number of specialties and in specific procedures, such as in cystoscopy.
• Virtual reality pilots for communications training in handling stressful situations in pre-hospital emergency care and mental health tribunals.
• Mental health simulation training.
• Virtual reality simulators, including six endoscopy simulators in 6 different health boards, alongside a national introductory course covering cancer diagnosis.
• A national urology simulator and learning programme.

The Centre for Workforce Supply within NHS Education for Scotland was established in November 2021.

The Scottish Government has recently conducted an Allied Health Profession Education & Workforce Policy Review. The recommendations of this review will be published shortly with an implementation plan published thereafter. The National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy has a commitment to undertake a scoping review of Healthcare Science education and to this end have recently conducted and published the first baseline review of the provision of Healthcare Science education.

Healthcare science - education and training provision: baseline review - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. 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 question S6W-13517 on 24 January 2023. 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