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The Women’s Health Plan sets out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women across their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

The Plan includes actions to develop a menopause/menstrual health policy for NHS Scotland staff in 2023. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13514 on 16 January 2023 for an update on the development of a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland. 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 Plan also contains an action to encourage Health Boards to participate in the Equally Safe at Work accreditation scheme. I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13539 on 23 January 2023 for an update on progress on this action.

The Race Equality Immediate Priorities Plan (IPP) Annex B contains actions under systemic recommendation 4 (Fair Work Practices) to support minority ethnic staff. Data recommendations 10, 11 and 14 also contain actions on monitoring workforce data, NHS workforce data and accountability and governance. These are published online at: Annex B - Immediate Priorities for Race Equality 2021-23 - Race equality: immediate priorities plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .’

The information on how many additional Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staff has been recruited by the Scottish Government in each year since 2007 is not centrally held.

The information on CAMHS workforce staff in post can be found in the following link: CAMHS | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

The Employee Turnover tab gives the number of joiners and leavers from year ending March 2012 to March 2022. Data for preceding years are not available.

Joiners are employees who are in post as at 31 March of a particular year and were not in post at 31 March of the previous year.

Leavers are employees who were in post as at 31 March of the previous year and not in post at 31 March year of the present year.

In my statement to parliament in November last year I stated I had recently launched Leading to Change, the Scottish Government’s national leadership development programme, for health, social work and social care. More information can be found on the website: Leading to Change | Leadership Development | NHS Scotland

a) The budget for Leading to Change is £978,000 for year 2022-23.

b) We have conducted user research to ascertain the programme’s reach and to ensure it fully meets the user needs. As of 9 January the following data applies:

• Website ; 7,774 users, 30,731 page views - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023 (18:00);
• 1983 people signed up to distribution list - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023 (18:00);
• 10,238 registered users on the Leading to Change app - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023
• Twitter 5,569 followers as at 9th January 2023 (accounts were @ProjectLiftScot pre 3rd October 2022)
• 964 colleagues attended 11 events - 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023
• 107 colleagues on longer term leadership development programmes delivered or co-delivered by Leading to Change between Sept 22 – 09 January 2023 (some programme began before the launch date)
• 178/200 available Leadership Live subscriptions (22 pending) 3rd October 2022 (launch) to 9th January 2023

c) By ensuring we invest in leadership development we are supporting our valuable front line services to create the conditions and culture that are critical to delivering better outcomes for the people who use our services. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the core of the Leading to Change programme with tailored and targeted interventions being delivered to increase and support the diverse workforce.

An update on the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care will be published later this year.

The information on how many Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staff there have been in each year since 2007 can be found: CAMHS | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

The staff in post tab provides quarterly data for CAMHS workforce.

The Scottish Government funded places offered since 2007 can be seen in the following table.

In 2021-22 funding of £91.4k was allocated to NHS Education for Scotland to support the Centre for Workforce Supply. The amount to be allocated in 2022-23 will be clarified at the financial year end.

Scottish Government has previously invested £180,000 in the development of a national care framework for Huntington’s Disease, with a view to the potential adoption of this approach in other neurological conditions. Our National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions will consider whether development of frameworks for additional neurological conditions should be prioritised as part of our ongoing implementation of the commitments within the Neurological Care and Support: Framework for Action 2020-2025 .

In 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action 2020-25 , with a vision to ensure everyone with a neurological condition can access the care and support they need to live well, on their own terms.

Since October 2020 we have we have awarded £2.1 million across three rounds of funding to 35 projects by NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and third sector organisations working to achieve better outcomes for people living with neurological conditions.

I further refer the member to the Neurological Care And Support: A Framework For Action 2020-2025 – Midpoint Progress Report , which contains case study examples of innovative projects we have funded which test and evaluate new models of care. A list of funded projects is also available on the Scottish Government website: Neurological Framework Funding: list of organisations funded - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

On 13 December 2022 we published a report of the estimated prevalence of 28 specific neurological conditions: Neurological Conditions: estimating the prevalence in Scotland of selected conditions using GP and Hospital Admissions datasets - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The work was initiated by the Scottish Government and supported by Public Health Scotland (PHS). Estimates were derived from GP recorded diagnoses and hospital admissions data.

The report addresses the commitment in the Neurological Care and Support: Framework for Action 2020-2025 to develop more accurate epidemiological data.

Undertaking this work has enabled us to begin looking at how neurological diagnoses are recorded in health and care records, and how we gather and report prevalence.

In 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action 2020-25 , with a vision to ensure everyone with a neurological condition can access the care and support they need to live well, on their own terms.

Commitment 12 of the Framework aims to gather better data regarding neurological conditions. The Scottish Epilepsy Register project, funded through the Framework, is focussed on improving data collection and patient safety and driving up standards of care. We are exploring with NHS National Services Scotland proposals to scale up and consolidate the work of the Register, which may ultimately serve as a replicable model for other neurological conditions.

Scottish Burden of Disease data is also available on a number of neurological conditions including epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease: Scottish Burden of Disease (shinyapps.io)

I further refer the member to answer S6W-13707 and S6W-13708 on 23 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