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The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing health inequalities and supporting people to live longer and healthier lives. Tackling underlying drivers such as poverty and inequality remain the best way to improve population health outcomes and life expectancy. We are undertaking a range of actions to achieve this.

In 2024-25 we continued to allocate around £3 billion a year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. This is in addition to initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles through tobacco control, preventing alcohol related harm, promoting healthy eating and physical activity.

These actions are coupled with national support to enable local approaches to address regional health disparities. Through the Place and Wellbeing Programme, the Scottish Government is tackling health inequalities by supporting health and social care bodies to operate as effective anchor institutions; empowering the community and voluntary sector to complement the public sector; and working to achieve fairer health and wellbeing outcomes through the coordinated efforts of Community Planning Partnerships.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government is working with its partners at a local, regional and national level to develop a Population Health Framework, to take a cross-government and cross-sector approach to improve the key building blocks of health including: good early years and education; good work and income; healthy places; and equitable health care. The Framework’s overarching ambition is to accelerate the recovery and improvement of population health in Scotland, focussing on a whole system approach to preventative action. Actions under the Framework will be targeted to areas and communities most in need to ensure an equitable approach to address regional disparities between Scotland’s communities.

A key way Scottish Government will develop its understanding of a whole system approach is through the recently announced collaboration between Public Health Scotland, University College London’s Institute of Health Equity and three of Scotland’s local authority areas. The Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland (CHES) will work with Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire to strengthen and accelerate action underway to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. Insight and learning from the Collaboration will be shared through a national learning system to support work across the whole country.

In addition, there are targeted actions within the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan aim to address women’s health inequalities through raising awareness across women’s health, improving access to healthcare for women across their lives and tackling inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

This information is not held centrally. NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships are the experts on their communities and are responsible for providing services that meet local needs. This may include providing services in-house or, where appropriate, through robust referral pathways to non-specialist services.

Following publication of the recent HIV Outcomes Beyond the Virus report, officials will work with the HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Implementation Group and the Scottish Health Protection Network’s HIV Clinical Leads Group to consider its recommendations and ensure that psychological support for adults living with HIV meets the high standards we would expect.

The Scottish Government is also providing NHS Education for Scotland with around £30 million in 2024-25 to deliver multidisciplinary education, training and workforce expansion for staff supporting adult and children’s mental health and psychological wellbeing.

As we head towards the peak winter period we can expect to see performance fluctuate as pressures start to increase. We know that too many people are still waiting too long – and we are determined to drive improvements across our NHS.

As part of the NHS Scotland Winter Plan, we are supporting Health Boards to move people through the hospital as quickly as possible so that A&E waits can be kept to an absolute minimum. This includes an increased focus on effective discharge planning, which not only helps to free up beds, but is also in the best interest of patients who are ready to leave hospital.

Additionally, a record number of NHS 24 call handlers will be available this winter to direct people to the most appropriate care, helping reduce unnecessary A&E attendances.

The Scottish Government welcomes the significant investment being made in the redevelopment of Hunterston marine yard to create a renewables hub, which it is anticipated could support thousands of jobs for the local community.

Peel Ports suggest that the site will be capable of hosting critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and fabrication facilities for the deployment of offshore wind. These will have the potential to boost local, regional, and national economies, creating employment opportunities in the local area and supporting local businesses.

The Scottish Government’s investment of up to £500m over five years to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland, is expected to leverage additional private investment of £1.5 billion in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the sector.

Officials will continue to work closely with Peel Ports on the company’s plans for investment to maximise the benefits for the local region.

The Scottish Government continues to adopt a comprehensive approach to address public health issues focusing on early prevention, reducing inequalities and creating the conditions to support people to lead healthier lifestyles.

This includes addressing the underlying drivers of heath inequalities by continuing to allocate around £3 billion a year in 2024-25 to a range of actions to tackle poverty and mitigate the impacts of the ongoing cost-of-living-crisis. This includes funding for free bus travel, the provision of early learning and childcare, as well as providing direct financial support through the likes of the Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government has taken clear action to improve population health including continuing and increasing Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol – estimated to have saved hundreds of lives - and delivery under our Tobacco and Vaping Framework including ongoing work on the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill to create a smokefree generation.

We are taking action to improve diet and increase physical activity. This includes ongoing work to consider restrictions on promotions of high fat, salt and sugar foods under our Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan, and promoting active lifestyles through our Physical Activity for Health Framework.

Furthermore, to address long term population health challenges work is ongoing to produce a Population Health Framework in partnership with COSLA and in collaboration with our wider partners. This will set out a whole system approach on population health seeking and key actions that seek to improve population health.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31702 on 4 December 2024. 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 Scottish Government’s HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out our approach to ensuring that people living with HIV have equitable access to high quality care and treatment to support them to live well.

We are aware of the recent HIV Outcomes Beyond the Virus report and will be working with the HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Implementation Group and the Scottish Health Protection Network’s HIV Clinical Leads Group to consider its recommendations and ensure that psychological support for adults living with HIV meets the high standards we would expect.

The Scottish Government is also providing NHS Education for Scotland with around £30 million in 2024-25 to deliver multidisciplinary education, training and workforce expansion for staff supporting adult and children’s mental health and psychological wellbeing. In September 2023, the Scottish Government published the National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions and the Core Standards for Mental Health. These set out the standards to which we expect psychological therapies and mental health services to be delivered, including appropriate staffing.