Health and social care - strategic plans: statutory guidance

1. Ministerial foreword

I would like to thank everyone who has helped shape the joint refresh of this strategic plans guidance and the annual performance reports guidance – from those who participated in the initial working group to those who provided feedback through the public consultation.

During this work, a number of underlying themes arose and drove forward progress. These included the importance of service planning in tackling the inequalities we see across society, the need for cross-service collaboration in planning local services, and the importance of ensuring that local partners and supported people are empowered to participate.

Reviewing and refreshing the guidance has provided an opportunity for us to reflect on what has been achieved through the integration of health and social care and to continue to collectively shape and support improvement in the planning and monitoring of our services as we move towards the National Care Service.

The review also highlighted where more substantial changes are required to realise our ambitions to support the people of Scotland – including legislative changes – and the themes arising from this work remain of utmost importance as we continue on the path towards developing a National Care Service that will introduce further support and guide improvement across our health and social care system.

Our next steps will be to continue working with those who supported this refresh to determine and design how the guidance can be implemented as part of our commitment to the National Care Service shared accountability model. Strategic plans will play an important role in this partnership between Scottish Ministers, the NHS and local government as we seek to strengthen national oversight and governance for the National Care Service, ensuring greater consistency in the delivery of essential health and social care services.

Maree Todd MSP
Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport