Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. A programme of leadership development has already started with local Directors and Deputy Directors of Public Health, along with Public Health Scotland, working with Scottish Government. A further programme of succession planning will be developed this year.

Scottish Directors of Public Health have been prioritised within the Scottish Government Leading to Change Programme for bespoke and sustainable leadership development support. Their knowledge, expertise and leadership are recognised as central to Scotland’s success in the recovery and re-building of the health of the nation post COVID.

Within Leading to Change we are also developing a programme of NHS Board CEO, Executive and Director Succession Planning. The Succession Planning workstream aims to create a diverse, values driven senior health workforce, by supporting existing and aspiring CEOs, Executives and Directors, and developing and implementing a consistent national approach to NHS Board Succession Planning that ensures a pipeline of candidates for future senior leadership roles, who are equipped to realise our ambitions as set out in the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan. We have created a Leadership Success Profile (LSP) for NHS CEO roles and will be creating an LSP for Executive and Director level roles in early 2023.

The National Clinical Skills for pharmacists programme supports registered pharmacists take on new and extended clinical roles, however it is the Independent Prescriber course which allows community pharmacists to qualify as Independent Prescribers. In 2020-2021 NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) commissioned a total of 115 Independent Prescriber (IP) places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2021.

In 2021-2022 NES commissioned a total of 222 IP places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2022.

The Pharmacist Independent Prescribing qualification takes on average 12 months to complete and courses run 4 times a year, therefore to date 111 community pharmacists from these cohorts have qualified as an Independent Prescriber.

Evidence from the evaluation of minimum unit pricing (MUP) has shown that consumers have responded to the introduction of MUP in a variety of ways including reduced purchasing of products whose price has increased, switching to smaller pack sizes, to more premium products and to lower strength products.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) are undertaking a comprehensive evaluation of MUP, which includes assessing the impact of MUP on health, crime, public safety and public nuisance in Scotland, and the impact on the alcohol industry. A final evaluation report will be published in 2023.

All published studies are available on the PHS website: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/

We understand the importance of appropriate staffing to provide high quality care for people with chronic pain. As set out in our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care published in March 2022, we are committed to supporting the delivery of new training pathways for pain management to enhance and expand our pain-skilled workforce.

In July 2022 we published our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which sets out the actions we are taking to improve care and support for people with chronic pain, including through developing the pain management workforce. In support of this we have established a new national multi-disciplinary Chronic Pain Education Group which is focused on developing and promoting resources to enhance the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals across Scotland.

In addition, we are working with the Faculty for Pain Medicine to support the development of new credentials to increase the availability of pain management specialists across our NHS. We are also supporting work to develop a credential for Advanced Care Practitioners in pain management which will support GPs, paramedics, Allied Healthcare Professionals and other key roles gain the knowledge and skills to provide holistic, effective support for people with chronic pain in their communities.

The HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal, led by Professor Rak Nandwani (the then co-chair of the Scottish Health Protection Network Strategic Leads) was published on 1 December 2022 and can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/ending-hiv-transmission-scotland-2030/

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. The group has gathered information from all local public health teams about their current workforce plans and issues. It will initially complete a baseline audit along with projections about future workforce needs. Considering opportunities to increase capacity in local public health teams will be a priority for the Group, Scottish Directors of Public Health, Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government. A leadership programme is already underway and some shared posts have been established across Scotland to increase capacity locally and nationally.

Work is currently underway in the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group to assess needs and agree priority actions in relation to the public health workforce. Three additional Public Health training places for trainee doctors have been created in recent years following recommendations made by the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group. While this may seem like a modest increase, it is relative to the specialty’s training establishment i.e. there were 35 established training places prior to the creation of those three extra posts. This will continue to be reviewed as part of public health workforce planning.

The Women’s Health Plan includes a variety of short, medium and long-term actions. Since the publication of the Plan in August 2021, we have prioritised actions that we know will have an immediate impact on health inequalities. Our first report on progress will be published in early 2023, and will set out the progress made since the publication of the plan.

I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13514 on 16 January 2023 for an update on the development of a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13514 on‎ 16 January 2023 for an update on the development of a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland. 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 .

Once developed for the NHS this policy can be used/adapted for other sectors, such as social care.

The Scottish Government’s Marketing team met with health and social care partnerships Communications leads in November 2022 to discuss the upcoming Adult Social Care National Recruitment Campaign, which launches on 25 January 2023.

As part of this, a stakeholder toolkit and campaign materials are being developed and will be shared with the HSCPs to be used at a local level and support their own local recruitment activity.

Alongside the marketing for the campaign, Scottish Government have worked with HSCPs and provider representative organisations to deliver webinars for social care employers, offering advice and support for when delivering their local recruitment campaigns.

Since 2019, the Scottish Government have led an Adult Social Care Campaign Advisory Group. This group ensures that representatives from across the sector, including HSCP representatives, have the opportunity to collaboratively work together, share good practice and provide support across different localities.