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The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ contains a dedicated strand focused on activity we are undertaking to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age.

In addition, we provide funding of £2.2 million, through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, to older people’s organisations and age equality projects. This funding is delivering a range of initiatives that tackles poverty among older people. A copy of the fund’s progress report can be found here Oct 23-Mar 24_E&HR Progress Report and provides details on initiatives we are delivering with this funding.

Our Pension Age Winter Heating Payment supports older people in receipt of relevant benefits to help with the costs of heating. Next winter, we will introduce a universal Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for all pensioner households in Scotland, meaning every pensioner household will receive a minimum of £100 with support towards their energy bills. This universal payment will provide much needed support not available anywhere else in the UK.

Women’s Health is key priority for this government which is why Scotland was the first country in the UK to publish an ambitious Women’s Health Plan in August 2021. Timely access to gynaecology services will remain a priority as we continue to develop our Women’s Health Plan.

The Budget we set out on 4 December 2024 will throw the weight of the government behind performance improvements with almost £200 million to reduce waiting lists and help support reduction of delayed discharge. By March 2026, we expect no one to be waiting longer than 12 months for a new outpatient, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

We have already invested £30 million to reduce waiting lists that built up throughout the pandemic. This funding is being targeted at a series of national and local plans to reduce backlogs by maximising the use of local and national resources across Scotland. As part of this, we have allocated additional funding to Gynaecology services which we expect to deliver around 3,500 new outpatient appointments.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Boards, community partners, and the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) to improve access to diagnosis, by supporting local health partners to develop, enhance and redesign existing local neurodevelopmental services.

We are working with NAIT to implement Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways across Scotland. By implementing a single diagnostic pathway for autism and ADHD, and by adopting a stepped care model, we hope to ensure that diagnostic and post-diagnostic support is provided in a timely and effective fashion.

The Scottish Government has produced several resources to increase public awareness of the issues that autistic people might face.

We launched the Different Minds website in 2020 to provide clearer information and a better understanding of autism, as well debunking myths around autism. The site was co-produced with and features autistic people, and was accompanied by an television advertising campaign and resources in local libraries and schools.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government, COSLA and Inspiring Scotland have recently collaborated with autistic people through our leadership and engagement framework. This work resulted in the co-creation of a package of lived experience resources, which were launched in November 2024. The resources look to increase autism awareness and the understanding of how autistic people experience health settings and are now available on the website.

Information listing the location and opening hours of all Changing Places facilities, including those within railway stations is available from the Changing Places Toilet website. For Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central stations, this is available on Network Rail’s website.

Within the Scottish Government policy responsibility for Health and Care Research sits with the Chief Scientist Office (CSO)

CSO is engaged with the MESSAGE (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) project, a UK-wide initiative which aims to improve the integration of sex and gender considerations across data collection, analysis and reporting in Biomedical, Health and Care research in the UK. MESSAGE brings together stakeholders from across the UK to co-design a sex and gender policy framework for funding and regulatory organisation and supporting policy implementation across the UK research sector. Medical Science Sex & Gender Equity

The co-designed framework was launched at the end of 2024 and introduced new recommendations for scientific practice which aim to enhance the quality of UK science at each stage of the research pipeline. CSO contributed to the development of the framework and is working to align its practices with the MESSAGE recommendations.

Through the Women’s Health Plan 2021- 2024 work has been ongoing to map the data on women’s health in Scotland. We have published a ‘Review of the Data Landscape’ that sets out some of the routinely published data on women’s health currently available in Scotland and highlights key gaps. The Care and Wellbeing Dashboard, which provides access to the latest data on population health outcomes and the wider determinants of health in Scotland, will also include breakdowns by sex where this data is available.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 – 2024 identified the need to shift the perception of heart disease in women. We delivered a successful awareness campaign throughout February 2023. In 2024, we worked closely with the ALLIANCE Scotland to improve awareness and engagement with women’s heart health through online webinars and resources.

More information can be found in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy 2021 – 2026 contains a commitment to addressing key inequalities in out of hospital cardiac arrest outcomes and references inequality in the provision of CPR in women.

Through the delivery of this strategy, Save a Life for Scotland partners have been working to address misconceptions about CPR and embed the knowledge that it is a gender neutral, life-saving technique.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and supporting legislation, provides a specific right for people to make complaints, raise concerns, make comments and give feedback. The Act also places a duty on NHS Boards to thoroughly investigate and respond to any concerns raised, to take improvement actions where appropriate and to share learning from the views they receive. When a person has concerns about their treatment or care, this should be addressed at a local level through the NHS complaints procedure. When resolution is not possible the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the second and final stage in the complaints process.

The SPSO is independent from the provider of healthcare and Ministers, and looks into complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.

We are committed to openness and transparency in an NHS that welcomes all forms of feedback and uses it to inform continuous improvement.

More broadly, the Women’s Health Plan set out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women throughout their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

The Women’s Health Plan set 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.

We have taken specific action through the Plan to support practitioners providing care to women accessing their service including commissioning NHS Education for Scotland to create bespoke training packages on menstrual health and menopause for general practice and others working in Primary Care.

In addition, our ‘Women's experiences of discrimination and the impact on health’ report was published on 27 June 2023. The report examines the current evidence base on women's health inequalities and reports on a two-phase research project. The findings in this project contribute to the evidence base on women's health inequalities, discrimination and young women through in-depth exploration of women in Scotland's intersectional experiences. The findings from this report will inform the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.