Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. 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 is working in conjunction with NES to support the identification of emerging technologies to assist the gap between service demand and capacity within the health and care system, particularly around staff training to enhance skills. Examples include:

• Online training provision within the Scotland Deanery.
• Train-the-trainer for “simulation” training across a number of specialties and in specific procedures, such as in cystoscopy.
• Virtual reality pilots for communications training in handling stressful situations in pre-hospital emergency care and mental health tribunals.
• Mental health simulation training.
• Virtual reality simulators, including six endoscopy simulators in 6 different health boards, alongside a national introductory course covering cancer diagnosis.
• A national urology simulator and learning programme.

The Scottish Government has worked alongside Higher Education Institutions, NHS Boards, NHS Education Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, and the Scottish Funding Council to agree controlled intakes for nursing, midwifery and paramedic science programmes and those discussions included multi-year intakes. An announcement on the details of the commissioned intakes for these subjects will be made shortly.

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should make assessments of changing local service demand as part of analysing any local staffing gaps and pressure points, alongside setting out the actions that health boards and health and social care partnerships are taking to address identified issues.

The Scottish Government is represented on the Cross-Whitehall International Recruitment Steering Group chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care. The Steering Group provides national policy oversight on international supply activity, including the development of bilateral country to country agreements, ensuring consistent ethical practices in line with the International recruitment of health and social care personnel: Scottish Code of Practice - August 2022 (revised) - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Primary care training hubs model has been developed and is in operation in GP practices in NHS Lothian and NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is working with Health Boards and GP practices to continue to increase training capacity in primary care settings for GPs and the MDT workforce. This work will inform the future use of training hubs and will accommodate the significant planned increases to medical undergraduate, foundation and GP training places, as well as other staff groups, announced by the Scottish Government.

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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13517 on 24 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

To date, the NHSScotland ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies Programme has refreshed the following PIN policies and process:

• Attendance
• Bullying and Harassment
• Capability
• Conduct
• Grievance
• Workforce Policies Investigation Process

In addition, the NHSScotland Whistleblowing Policy that includes the National Whistleblowing Standards was published in April 2021.

Following a pause due to the pandemic, the ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies programme of work formally restarted in June 2022. The review of the suite of Supporting the Work-Life Balance Policies that include flexible working arrangements and the Homeworking Policy (now known as the NHSScotland Flexible Work Location Policy) is currently at an advanced stage.

The programme policy development schedule is reviewed at each stage to enable response to service pressures and prioritised policy needs. Requests for new policies are considered by the ‘Once for Scotland’ Workforce Policies Programme Board.

For the Academic Year 2022-23 there are currently 1003 paramedic science students taking part in Scottish-Government commissioned education degree programmes.