Primary Care Health Inequalities Short-Life Working Group recommendations: progress report 2023

Progress on the SLWG Recommendations

This section of the report summarises progress against the five foundational recommendations. Appendix 1 summarises relevant developments against all 23 recommendations. The recommendations include a mixture of short term, new developments and longer-term actions to increase capacity and influence, and the progress report reflects that spectrum. These updates are not intended to be a fully comprehensive account of all work being undertaken across the Scottish Government which may be relevant to individual recommendations, given their wide-ranging nature, extending across policy portfolios.

The five foundational recommendations have progressed as follows:

Fairhealth fellowships. A detailed costing proposal is being developed for multi-disciplinary fellowship opportunities to support recruitment, retention and development across practice teams and the wider primary care MDT of the skills, knowledge and confidence to work with individuals and communities affected by health inequalities.

Inclusion Enhanced Service. The Inclusion Health Action in General Practice programme was launched in early 2023 with £300,000 funding for 'Deep End' GP practices in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board area to take forward work on extended consultations, peer support and education/training. Up to £1m has been identified for 23/24 and delivery will be informed by monitoring and learning from the first phase of funding.

Strengthen national leadership. The Scottish Government is currently considering how to respond to this recommendation and to the reports from both the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee report and the Health Foundation. It recognises that it is important that whatever approach is taken is meaningful over the long term and is cross-portfolio.

Research on barriers. The Scottish Government is leading a programme of research, supported by an external Research Advisory Group. This has focussed on consolidating existing evidence to gain a comprehensive understanding of how barriers to primary healthcare are experienced and how they lead to poorer patient health outcomes. A report including recommendations will be complete later in 2023.

Invest in wellbeing communities. This is being taken forward through the Scottish Government's Place and Wellbeing programme. This is focused on the development of "anchor institutions", empowering the community and voluntary sector, and enabling local change through better data and intelligence through community planning partnerships.