Government to publish two further plans on future of NHS in Scotland

The Scottish Government will publish two plans on the future of the NHS in the coming months, it has been announced.

Ministers are working with local authority body Cosla to create a population health framework which will be released in the spring, while a health and social care service renewal framework will be released in late June.

The announcement came as part of the Government’s operational improvement plan for the NHS, released on Monday.

The plan said: “We are co-developing the population health framework with Cosla and in collaboration with Public Health Scotland, NHS directors of public health and other local, regional and national partners. We will publish it in spring 2025.

“The framework will detail a long-term, cross-government and cross-sector approach to primary prevention of ill health, i.e how we support people to live healthy and fulfilling lives and stopping health problems arising in the first place.

“We will publish our health and social care service renewal framework in late June 2025.

“It will build on the vision for reform and set out the strategic policy intent for health and social care in Scotland for the medium to longer term.”

The 21-page document largely reiterated commitments made by the First Minister in a speech in January, where he pledged to reduce waiting times in the health service so no-one is waiting longer than one year by March 2026.

As part of the plan to reduce waiting times for diagnostics, the document pledged seven-day working for radiology as well as mobile scanning units, to improve availability of MRI, CT, ultrasound and endoscopy procedures in a bid to reduce the waiting list to less than six weeks by next March.

We want to increase the number of appointments, speed up treatment and make it easier to see a doctor. By better using digital technology, we will embrace innovation and increase efficiencies

Announcing the plan, Health Secretary Neil Gray visited the flow navigation centre – a virtual tool designed to control the flow of patients through emergency departments – at Kirklands Hospital in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire.

He said: “This plan details how the Scottish Government will deliver a more accessible NHS, with reductions to long-waits and the pressures we currently see.

“It shows how we will use the £21.7 billion health and social care investment in the 2025-26 Budget to deliver significant improvements for patients.

“We want to increase the number of appointments, speed up treatment and make it easier to see a doctor. By better using digital technology, we will embrace innovation and increase efficiencies.

“This plan is ambitious but realistic, and builds on the incredible work of our amazing health and social care staff across our health boards, to deliver real change.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said the plan amounted to “recycled ideas”.

The pledge that Scots should 'only' wait a year for treatment just reveals the low ambition the SNP has for our NHS

“This is the SNP Government’s fifth plan in four years, yet thousands of Scots are still queuing for A&E every week, while nearly one in six are stuck on a waiting list,” she said.

“Scottish Labour has long advocated for patients to be able to access treatment wherever they are based and for the National Treatment Centres to be used to their full capacity, so we welcome the SNP’s adoption of these ideas.

“Sadly, though, much of the plan amounts to recycled ideas — the digital front door was supposed to be launched at the end of 2023 and this report confirms that it will only have been piloted in one board by the end of this year.

“We don’t yet have electronic prescribing across the country and this was promised in 2021.

“The pledge that Scots should ‘only’ wait a year for treatment just reveals the low ambition the SNP has for our NHS.”

She said that a Scottish Labour government would ensure GP appointments within two days, reduce waiting times and increase social care capacity.

Scottish Tory health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said the plan was “rehashed”, adding: “This latest announcement from Neil Gray is full of promises that should have already been met by the SNP and it exposes the overwhelming failure of Humza Yousaf’s Covid recovery plan.

“All aspects of our NHS are in a state of permanent crisis on the SNP’s watch. They have repeatedly failed to ensure money gets to where it is needed most in the health service.”

And Professor Andrew Elder, the president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, welcomed the plan, describing the current number of people stuck in hospital waiting for a care plan as “entirely unacceptable”.

Prof Elder went on to urge the Government to focus on recruitment and retention of doctors to ensure research published earlier this year by Edinburgh University suggesting waiting lists could reach one million by the end of the year does not come to pass.

“While the operational improvement plan does acknowledge the need for greater capacity, we are calling for further efforts to be made in boosting the recruitment and retention of doctors,” he said.

“It takes many years to train new doctors – we must see a commitment to fund such training in Scotland combined with efforts to increase ethical recruitment of doctors from outside the UK.”

BMA Scotland chair Dr Iain Kennedy added: “While the operational improvement plan does acknowledge the need for greater capacity, we are calling for further efforts to be made in boosting the recruitment and retention of doctors.

“It takes many years to train new doctors – we must see a commitment to fund such training in Scotland combined with efforts to increase ethical recruitment of doctors from outside the UK.”