The Scottish Government has recently conducted an Allied Health Profession Education & Workforce Policy Review. The recommendations of this review will be published shortly with an implementation plan published thereafter. The National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy has a commitment to undertake a scoping review of Healthcare Science education and to this end have recently conducted and published the first baseline review of the provision of Healthcare Science education.

Healthcare science - education and training provision: baseline review - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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

‘The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) has been awarded the contract to develop anti-racist training resources for NHS staff, by end of 2024. These resources will have a specific focus on

• Understanding and identifying systemic and structural racism both in general and within health and social care settings in particular;
• The impact of racism on mental and physical health of both the victims and the witnesses;
• Racialised health inequalities;
• Intersectional racism, including islamophobia, and prejudice affecting specific groups such as minority ethnic women, asylum seekers and refugees;
• Reporting of incidents; and
• Support structures and resources across NHS Health Boards in Scotland.

CRER will work in collaboration with the NHS National Ethnic Minority Forum, NHS employers and other key partners to ensure that the resources developed are relevant to the experiences of staff and patients in Scotland.’

The number of undergraduate medical school places available since 2007, broken down by University, has been provided below. It should be noted that these include international students and reflects the places available; rather than the eventual entrants.

The Scottish Government is providing a range of recruitment support, as well as training and development activity to assist Health Boards with securing the right mix of new and experienced staff for their NTCs.

Detailed plans relating to the size and composition of the workforce for each NTC site has been or will be developed by the relevant territorial NHS Board and submitted to the Scottish Government as part of the wider planning and approval process for the site in operation.

I refer the Member to my statements in Parliament on 5 October 2021 and 4 October 2022 where I set out details of new international recruitment targets. Boards undertake this recruitment focussing on key areas with current vacancies.

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

The Preparing for Work in Health and Social Care in Scotland Programme was developed by the NHS Scotland Academy and was launched on the 17 December 2022. Within the programme there are 8 training modules, supporting those new to the Health and Social Care employment to deliver safe, effective, person-centred care.

The resources are designed to support local induction and are subject to regular review to ensure quality and currency of content

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) to consider workforce planning capacity and capability across services. We remain committed to building a culture of continuous learning and improvement in workforce planning, including through the guidance we developed to support the development of health board and HSCP three-year workforce plans. We have been exploring, with stakeholders, formal qualification and accreditation opportunities, we continue to take forward these discussions with partners in further and higher education, alongside the provision of in-house training.

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.