Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019: statutory guidance

1. Foreword

As Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, my priority is the recovery and reform of our health and social care services to ensure the system becomes more effective, efficient and sustainable and that the people of Scotland can get the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

Implementation of the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 is a key step in this journey. It will put in place the systems and processes to enable real-time assessment of staffing to identify risks, that can then be addressed or escalated to support frontline staff delivering services. It will also provide services with the structures, processes, and intelligence to enable better workforce planning, better transparency of risk and better accountability, as well as supporting innovation and providing opportunities for service redesign. The Act covers a wide variety of health and care services and the provisions are designed to be flexible in order to take into account local context and the delivery of different models of care.

Health and care services data is vital to improving services, designing policies and supporting the delivery of key priorities and, under the Act, there are various obligations for organisations to report on, and publish, information about how they have met their requirements. We, as the Scottish Ministers, also have obligations under the Act, regarding presenting these reports to Parliament and explaining what actions we will take in response, along with taking reasonable steps to ensure the availability of sufficient number of healthcare professionals.

This statutory guidance is intended to support organisations in meeting their requirements under the Act and I want to express my thanks to all of our NHS and care staff who have contributed not only to the drafting of this guidance but have been great advocates for this legislation. I am truly thankful for your dedication and service to the people of Scotland and look forward to working with you to deliver recovery and reform of our health and care services. .

Neil Gray MSP
Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care