Specialist Nursing and Care Fund: report

Comment from the Chief Nursing Officer

The First Minister's funding announcement demonstrates our commitment to ensuring excellence in care for every person, every time. This significant recurring resource and the additional specialist nurses is helping to maximise the contribution specialist nurses can make to improving people's health and wellbeing. In relation to MND nurses, the funding has not only enabled the numbers to be more than doubled, but has also put in place an ongoing commitment to the cost being met from the public purse for the first time.

This report has outlined how NHS boards have worked with the third sector and other partners to ensure the additional investment has enhanced specialist nursing provision in their areas, focusing on local population needs.

Clinical nurse specialists add value across a range of areas, and the report shows that the additional investment is making a significant difference to the provision of care for people and communities. The third sector traditionally has a key role in supporting specialist nursing services, and I acknowledge and commend the commitment the sector has made to ensuring the additional investment leads to maximum benefits for patients and families.

The report has provided a flavour of specialist nurses' roles and the impact the nurses are making. We now need to consider whether further work is required to help us further maximise the role and contribution of Scotland's specialist nurses, in the context of wider work to support and transform nursing roles and service delivery models. I will work with nurse directors and other stakeholders to consider how this can be taken forward as part of delivering on the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan and Scotland's Nursing 2030 Vision.

We have learnt much about the impacts of specialist nursing through working with NHS boards and third sector partners in putting the additional investment into practice. I now look forward to seeing ongoing progress with developments in the evolution of the clinical nurse specialist role in Scotland.

Professor Fiona McQueen
Chief Nursing Officer
Scottish Government