Health and social care vision

Overview

We are taking steps to reform and renew our health and social care services.

Our vision is for ‘a Scotland where people live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives.’ This vision is supported by four key values which give focus to our reform work:

• prioritise prevention
• maximise access
• provide quality services
• deliver using a person-led approach

Our reform and renewal priorities and actions are set out in the complementary publications:

• Operational Improvement Plan (March 2025) focusing on improvements to performance in healthcare delivery in the short-term
• Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework  (June 2025) which describes our medium-term approach to health and social care system reform
• Population Health Framework (June 2025) setting out our long-term approach to primary prevention and addressing deep-rooted inequalities that continue to impact health and wellbeing across Scotland

Working together, our reform efforts 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 to and redesigning hospital services
• deliver a stronger digital first approach to all our health and social care services - improving access to services through innovation and technology
• embed prevention - tackling the root causes of long-term ill-health and disease and helping people to live longer, healthier lives

To monitor progress of our reform efforts, we have collaborated with Public Health Scotland to develop the Population Health Dashboard. This analytical tool is designed to support local planning and reform by providing robust data on both health outcomes and the wider building blocks of health. The dashboard is available via the Scottish Public Health Observatory’s (ScotPHO) online profiles tool.