Donation and Transplantation Plan 2021 to 2026: annual progress update - December 2025

10. Priority 7 – Public health improvement

10.1 Work with Public Health Scotland to ensure its work to improve public health can help us to reduce organ failure across Scotland.

Public Health Scotland has a number of key priorities, including improving life expectancy and reducing health inequalities, preventing disease, prolonging healthy life and promoting health. They aim to deliver their objectives by working with a range of partners, such as Directors of Public Health, Local Authorities and Scottish Government to develop key evidence, insight and data.

A representative from Public Health Scotland has now joined the Scottish Donation and Transplant Group and is providing public health expertise, and advice how best to deliver on some of the public health actions in the Plan.

10.2 The Scottish Government will also ensure its prevention policies on diet and healthy weight, physical activity, and alcohol, tobacco and drugs focus on health inequalities to help reduce organ failure across Scotland.

The Scottish Government published Scotland’s Population Health Framework 2025-2035 on 17 June 2025 which sets out the Scottish Government's and COSLA’s long-term collective approach to improving Scotland’s health and reducing health inequalities for the next decade.

The Framework represents a shift in culture, from treating illness to prevention and a more whole system approach to improving health. The Framework is based on five key interconnected prevention drivers of health and wellbeing:

1. Prevention focused system

2. Social and economic factors

3. Places and communities

4. Enabling healthy living

5. Equitable access to health and care

The Framework also sets out initial actions across these drivers and identifies two initial evidence-based priorities – embedding prevention in our systems and improving healthy weight.

10.2.1 Enabling healthy living driver

The medium to long-term aims are to:

• increase access to a healthy, balanced diet
• reduce consumption of health harming products
• increase levels of physical activity
• enable people to receive the right support at the right time for problem drug and alcohol use
• better consider the clustering of health harming activities in national and local responses
• create the first generation free from tobacco addiction
• better understand and address harms from social media
• reduce gambling harms through action supported by the Gambling Levy.

10.2.2 Building upon existing action

Actions within this driver build upon existing action already being progressed under the following, non-exhaustive, list of policies and strategies:

• Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy
• National Good Food Nation Plan
• Best Start Foods
• UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative
• Health and Wellbeing in Schools
• Setting the Table Guidance
• Physical Activity for Health: Framework
• Tobacco and Vaping Framework: Roadmap to 2034
• National Mission on Drugs
• Dementia Strategy for Scotland