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As committed to in the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care, we have been undertaking a data collection exercise to inform future decisions about workforce investment. This work is being led by the Scottish Cancer Network, which is engaging with local boards and professional representatives.

A final report, including recommendations, will be provided to the National Oncology Taskforce in the first quarter of 2023. The Taskforce is made up of NHS Board Chief Executives and Medical Directors, and will seek national solutions to ensure the longer term resilience of oncology services in Scotland.

Our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care supports the remobilisation and recovery of health and social care services and sets out priorities for recruitment, training and retention. We anticipate that the Strategy will be used by workforce, service and financial planners across Health and Social Care at all levels.

Through this Workforce Strategy, and the NHS Recovery Plan, we are investing in staff so that they have the right skill mix and career progression opportunities.

Through our National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions, we are identifying priorities to strengthen the neurological workforce alongside the National Workforce Strategy, Remobilisation Plans and Rehabilitation Framework. We have scoped neurological workforce priorities and work has commenced to address these with a focus on nursing, allied health professionals (AHPs), neuropsychology and neurophysiology.

A Transforming Roles paper on Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) was published in 2021. Through the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, an expert group has been reviewing how existing CNS competencies for neurological conditions such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s align to Transforming Roles with a view to identifying challenges or barriers to accessing training to develop and sustain this workforce.

We are testing with NHS neurology services in the West of Scotland, a workforce capacity planning tool for Allied Health Professionals that has been developed through the Healthcare Improvement Scotland Excellence in Care programme to help ensure staffing levels are in line with safe staffing legislation. An AHP Education & Workforce review has been completed with recommendations from that review being published early this year. Thereafter work will commence on an implementation plan.

We are undertaking work to better understand specialist service provision for people in Scotland with neurological conditions, through which we aim to develop an approach to ensure reliable information and workforce data is available and informs actions.

This will consider existing roles, specialities, subspecialties, and developments in advanced Health Care Assistants, key workers and third sector speciality regarding neurological care. The process will also align with relevant commitments from the Neurological Framework, Transforming Roles agenda and the National Workforce Strategy.

Public-facing information about neurological conditions is being developed for the NHS Inform website, to support education and self-management.

New or revised pages have been published on Functional Neurological Disorder, Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington’s Disease, Transverse Myelitis, Migraine, Myasthenia Gravis, Post-Polio Syndrome, Epilepsy, Motor Neuron Disease, and on eight types of Muscular Dystrophy. Further pages currently in development include Cerebral Palsy, Ataxia, Tourette’s Syndrome, Multiple Spinal Atrophy, Parkinson’s Disease, Dystonia and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Through the Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action 2020-25 , we have funded a number of projects which have developed or are developing information to support people to better understand their neurological conditions. I further refer the member to the Neurological Care And Support: A Framework For Action 2020-2025 – Midpoint Progress Report , which was published on 13 July 2022 for further detail.

I refer the member to the Neurological Care And Support: A Framework For Action 2020-2025 – Midpoint Progress Report , which was published on 13 July 2022. This report provides an update on the progress under each of the five aims in the Neurological Care And Support: A Framework For Action 2020-2025.

Specifically, page 13 of the report details a project we funded to develop principles of good transition across the lifespan of people with neurological conditions, using a range of methodologies.

More widely, Scottish Government will introduce Scotland’s first National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy in this Parliamentary term to ensure there is a joined-up approach to supporting our young people with disabilities as they make the transition to adult life. The scope of the Strategy will be developed through engagement with people with lived experience of transitions in all areas of life, including health care. We will begin progressing external engagement on the Strategy in early 2023.

In 2022-23 we supported the Neurological Alliance of Scotland (NAoS) to produce three information resources to support key workers and carers to guide people with neurological conditions to access Self-Directed Support (SDS).

The resources have been produced in conjunction with Self-Directed Support Scotland and are designed to raise awareness and understanding of SDS amongst three groups who are in a position to support people living with a neurological condition to access it: health and social care professionals, voluntary sector workers, and parents/carers of children with neurological conditions.

The resources were published by the NAoS in January 2023 at www.scottishneurological.org.uk and comprise:

• Self-Directed Support for adults: Information for Health and Social Care Professionals
• Self-Directed Support for adults: Information for the Voluntary Sector
• Self-Directed Support for children: What to Expect - Information for Parents

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13690 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 .

All NHS boards have utilised the funding available to build the infrastructure in their recruitment teams and appoint an international recruitment lead.

The Scottish Government funds health and care research largely through the Chief Scientist Office's two response mode grant committees: https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

These meet twice per year and their role is well-known across the health and care research community in Scotland. Applications on qualitative research on the impact of living with a neurological condition are welcomed. Any such applications would go through the CSO's standard independent expert review process to enable funding decisions to be made.

The Chief Scientist Office partnered with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Medical Research Council to fund a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (JLA PSP) on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). This used standard JLA methodology to work with clinicians, patients and carers to identify the most important areas for research. The outputs of the ME/CFS PSP were published in May 2022 and represent an important resource for the ME/CFS community, together with researchers and research funders:

https://www.jla.nihr.ac.uk/priority-setting-partnerships/ME-CFS/

Through the Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action 2020-25 , Scottish Government and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) are improving referral pathways. The CfSD continues to work with neurological services to support the appropriate adoption of Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) which ensures patients receive the right care in an appropriate setting, and Patient Initiated Review (PIR) which puts patients at the centre of their care.

The CfSD is working with Public Health Scotland towards capturing data in relation to ACRT and Discharge PIR, which will provide a better understanding of the scale, spread and potential further opportunity of these approaches.

The CfSD Neurology Specialty Delivery Group are developing a number of GP fact sheets for common neurological symptoms designed to support clinical triage by ensuring patients access the correct pathways in timely, robust and appropriate manner. These resources are intended to support good communication between secondary and primary care. They have been developed by a multi-Board expert group of primary and secondary care clinicians and are currently being prepared for national use.

Through our Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action 2020-25 we are also funding condition-specific pathway work, in particular regarding Functional Neurological Disorder and migraine.

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 .