Health and social care vision

Overview

The Chief Medical Officer has highlighted the population health challenges we face both now and in the future:

• threats from infectious diseases remain
• life expectancy is stalling and health inequalities are widening
• demand for and utilisation of our health and social care services continues to increase in an unsustainable way
• the climate emergency requires adaptation and is already affecting Scotland’s health and wellbeing 

On 4 June 2024 the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care set out a new vision for health and social care services in Scotland to address these challenges and give focus to our reform work.

Our vision is to ‘enable people to live longer, healthier and fulfilling lives.’  This is supported by four key areas of work:

• improving population health
• a focus on prevention and early intervention
• providing quality services
• maximising access

All underpinned by a person-centred approach.

As the First Minister outlined on 27 January 2025, we are taking bold and ambitious steps to reform and renew our health service and deliver the change that people in Scotland need now. At the heart of this plan is action to reduce waiting times and making sure people get high quality care, more quickly.

A Government Inspired Question(S6W-34287) accompanied the First Minister’s speech on health on 27 January 2025. This summarises the speech, outlines what will be delivered and by when.

These reforms will: 

• improve access to treatment - reducing immediate pressures by driving down waiting times and clearing backlogs
• shift the balance of care into the community and homes - delivering the right care in the right place while protecting access in hospitals
• deliver a stronger digital first approach to all our health and social care services - improving access to services through innovation and technology
• take a long-term approach to prevention - tackling the root causes of long-term ill-health and disease and helping people to live longer, healthier lives

The First Minister set out that we will be:

• publish a detailed operational improvement plan in March
• followed in spring 2025 by our population health framework - setting out our long-term approach to primary prevention
• and then publishing our medium-term approach to health and social care reform before summer Parliament recess

These key products will build on the health and social care vision and set out the detailed actions that we will take and demonstrate how we will plan our services for our whole population over the short, medium and longer term.