Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government places great importance on community sports and leisure facilities. They are crucial to the wellbeing of all our country and most importantly, for our children and young people to be healthy and active.

We have asked sportscotland to undertake a review of the facilities estate which will provide vital information in understanding the sport and leisure facilities provision in the long term. In addition, sportscotland and Scottish Swimming have recently published a detailed research study into the condition of Scotland’s swimming pools.

We are fully aware that local authorities are facing challenging financial circumstances, particularly in the maintenance and operating of facilities, largely due to energy costs and other cost of living pressures. sportscotland will continue to work with its local partners to help them assess the impact of any potential facility closures across the country. In addition, the Minister for Social Care, Mental Health and Sport and officials engage regularly with Community Leisure UK to discuss the local public facilities landscape.

In recognition of the importance of access to sports and leisure facilities, our Programme for Government sets out our intention to convene a working group, including representatives of sports organisations, community organisations and CoSLA, to explore how community access to community facilities, such as the school estate, can be enhanced.

While Scottish Government is responsible for the strategic direction of the NHS, territorial Health Boards are responsible for delivering services in their areas, and providing appropriate community spaces for midwives and allied health professionals.

Community-based maternity services should have access to appropriate accommodation to provide face to face appointments. ‘The Best Start: a Five Year forward Plan for maternity and neonatal care’ outlines the expectation that Boards provide routine care and maternity services through Community Hubs.

We are also supporting development of primary care multi-disciplinary teams (MDT), including allied health professionals, with investment of £190 million in 2023-24 through the Primary Care Improvement Fund.

Integrated Authorities must work closely with local communities and other stakeholders to ensure that Primary Care Improvement Plans address specific local challenges and population need.

While making significant progress in these reforms, we recognise that implementation gaps remain, including around accommodation barriers.

We are now also introducing an additional ‘phased investment programme’ working with a small number of areas to demonstrate what a model MDT can look like in practice. The findings from this programme will build understanding of the national context for further implementation and inform future long-term Scottish Government investment.

The Scottish Government keeps the eligibility criteria for free school meals under regular review to take account of any developments which may impact upon it. The eligibility criteria was last amended in April 2023. We notify local authorities whenever any changes are made to the eligibility criteria to enable them to invite fresh applications for free school meals under the new criteria.

We are currently reviewing the existing eligibility criteria for free school meals in light of the latest increases to the National Living Wage, which were announced by the UK Government on 21 November 2023.

The Scottish Government has commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to improve Community Urgent Care (CUC) pathways as part of the wider Urgent and Unscheduled Care Programme. In addition to validated nationally collected data from Public Health Scotland, an Unscheduled Care Improvement Dashboard is in creation which will consist of ‘data for improvement’ collected manually by each Health Board Area, which supports tracking of locally held data to reflect the impact of improvement activity, creating visibility of progress.

Work is also underway through an external partner to evaluate the Redesign of Urgent Care pathway through NHS 24 111 service which launched in 2020 and provides access to local Flow Navigation Centres and virtual A&E teams.This evaluation will assess impact on a range of measures, including patient and staff experience and assess what other outcomes are impacted by the service.

• The Scottish Government has commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to improve Community Urgent Care (CUC) pathways as part of the wider Urgent and Unscheduled Care Programme.
• In addition to validated nationally collected data from Public Health Scotland, an Unscheduled Care Improvement Dashboard is in creation which will consist of ‘data for improvement’ collected manually by each Health Board Area, which supports tracking of locally held data to reflect the impact of improvement activity, creating visibility of progress.
• Work is also underway through an external partner to evaluate the Redesign of Urgent Care pathway through NHS 24 111 service which launched in 2020 and provides access to local Flow Navigation Centres and virtual A&E teams. This evaluation will assess impact on a range of measures, including patient and staff experience and assess what other outcomes are impacted by the service.

Scottish Government officials met with NHS Scotland Board Chief Executives on 12 December where they discussed agency nurse staffing as one of their priority actions. This follows detailed engagement with Boards regarding the arrangements currently in place for contracting agency staffing, the outputs of which are being used to inform targeted improvement activity in this area.

A Flow Navigation Centre has been established in every mainland Health Board as part of the Redesign of Urgent Care Programme. They provide expert clinical advice, referrals to alternative services and, when necessary, schedule appointments at A&E. They play a key role in ensuring patients receive the ‘Right Care, in the Right Place’ by diverting patients to more appropriate pathways of care and reducing unplanned attendances to A&E departments.

The RUC Programme was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic (December 2020), impacting on the comparability of statistics. However, in the 12 months to October 2023, A&E attendances where down by more than 11 percentage points compared to 2019 levels. Whilst we do not have comprehensive data available, we understand through discussions with Health Boards that the reduction in attendance is in part due to Flow Navigation Centre’s.

In order to realise the full potential of Flow Navigation Centres, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) have established a Flow Navigation Specialty Delivery Group to drive the development and delivery of high quality Flow Navigation services across Scotland. The group brings together key stakeholders to establish the optimal Flow Navigation Model and reduce unwarranted variation. Developing and capturing the relevant data to measure the impact of this work and to understand and evidence outcomes is part of the SDG workplan which is being taken forward over the next year.

Scottish Government officials met with NHS Scotland Board Chief Executives on 12 December where they discussed medical locum staffing as one of their priority actions. This follows detailed engagement with Boards regarding the arrangements currently in place for contracting agency staffing, the outputs of which are being used to inform targeted improvement activity in this area.

The current route to becoming a midwife is to attain a degree in midwifery, however there is a shortened programme available to existing adult nurses who can dual-qualify in 20 months via Edinburgh Napier University. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are autonomous bodies responsible for the attraction and recruitment of their own students. Each institution has their own advertising and recruitment strategy which will include visiting schools, attending careers fairs and promoting the range of opportunities via their social media channels. HEIs also recruit to their Nursing and Midwifery Council approved programmes against their own entry requirements and will encourage and support prospective students in how to achieve the required standards.

Additionally, the attraction and retention of people into nursing and midwifery is a key part of the remit of the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce. This work is ongoing and the Taskforce will recommend a workplan of actions to support longer-term workforce sustainability within nursing and midwifery next year.

The NHS Scotland Academy (NHSSA) provides training opportunities across five programme areas: National Workforce Programmes; National Endoscopy Training Programmes (NETP); National Perioperative Training Programmes; National Imaging Training Programmes; NHS Scotland Youth Academy and the NHSSA Skills & Simulation Centre. Within these programme areas, NHSSA facilitates over 30 training courses. More information, including a full list of courses, can be found on the NHSSA website - www.nhsscotlandacademy.co.uk/education-and-training

In the last 12 months, NHSSA has provided additional training opportunities for 5,918 new and existing staff.

The learning modules “Preparing for work in Health and Social Care in Scotland”, designed to support incoming staff, have been completed by 3,941 learners in the last 12 months.

In financial year 2022-23, NHSSA was provided with £3.5m in funding.

The Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce, which brings together representatives from a broad range of stakeholders, including the RCN, RCM, and academia, focuses on retention as one of its five key themes. Retention, including the retention of nursing graduates, is currently being assessed with recommended action as indicated by its findings due in the coming year.