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The Scottish Government have a number of initiatives already in place to attract healthcare professionals to rural areas, including Aberdeenshire.

The NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service is helping people to access the Right Care at the Right Place. It removes the need for unnecessary visits to GPs, Out of Hour services or Emergency Department for everyday self-limiting conditions.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) has reported that that in financial year 2023-24 alone, over 4.7 million Pharmacy First Scotland consultations were undertaken with 95% providing advice on self-care or treatment at the point of contact. PHS also reported that in 2023/24, 32% percent of the Scottish population (1,747,654 people) accessed Pharmacy First Scotland services at least once. PHS reports provide analysis of data at a national level, further aggregation by local area may be available online.

With Patient Group Directions (PGDs) in place for common clinical conditions such as shingles, urinary tract infections, skin conditions, impetigo and hay fever – patients can get prescription treatment without the need for an appointment at their GP practice. In 2023-24, Pharmacy First Scotland consultations using PGDs accounted for 3.8% of the total consultations (181,174) with 84% (154,809) resulting in treatment being provided by the community pharmacist.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33527 on 27 January 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is not aware of any workforce shortages in community optometry. NHS Scotland commissioned and published a National Ophthalmic Workforce Review report in May 2023 which is available at:

The Scottish Government is working with Higher Education Institutions to deliver a new UK-leading Master's optometry undergraduate degree. This will support all optometry graduates from 2029 to have the opportunity to qualify with Independent Prescribing.

Public Health Scotland publishes annual data on NHS eye examination on their website at:

The Scottish Government published our along with an initial three year in June 2023. Over a 10-year period, our strategic aim is to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible care.

The strategy and plan have a focus on reducing inequities in access to cancer care and cancer outcomes. This means treatment and care will be equally good wherever anyone lives and whoever they are. Actions to tackle inequalities are incorporated into other ambitions in the action plan.

The Scottish Government is looking to improve our understanding of the experience of people with cancer living in rural and island communities. Examples include an independent evaluation of their access to cancer care services, and a research programme on rural healthcare funded by the Chief Scientist Office.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to establish the Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS) in November 2021 to support workforce capacity across NHS Scotland and to ensure it has the right people, in the right place at the right time. The CWS works collaboratively with health boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and other key stakeholders to support the implementation of innovative workforce initiatives which help tackle priority supply challenges. Over the next year, CWS will be leading work connecting with health boards such as Public Health Scotland, and NHS Grampian, with a view to understanding how population health, service demand, and workforce supply data, can be used more effectively in workforce planning.

NES have a range of resources and training programmes in place to support rural practitioners across Scotland including increasing the opportunities to train in rural Scotland, the GP Rural Fellowship and the new GMC Rural and Remote Health (unscheduled and urgent care) Credential.

We also commissioned the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care (NCRRHC) in 2023, again delivered by NES. The purpose of NCRRHC is to co-ordinate work to improve remote, rural and island healthcare recruitment and retention; to increase access to training; and to develop new models of service delivery, which are focused on improved outcomes for rural and island communities.

Further, the Scottish Government has convened a Remote, Rural and Islands Task and Finish Group which is developing a framework and sustainable operating model to plan sustainable services for rural and island communities, which will include workforce considerations such as recruitment, retention and training.

Under General Ophthalmic Services arrangements in Scotland, all community optometry practices are required to have a range of equipment (including a digital retinal imaging equipment) to support the early detection of eye disease.

The SCONe project (https://clinical-sciences.ed.ac.uk/ophthalmology/scone) is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow Caledonian University and the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. It brings together the retinal images taken during an NHS eye examination with other routinely-collected healthcare data within Scotland’s NHS National Safe Haven. The first aim of SCONe is to analyse these images in order to evaluate changes in the macula and age-related macula degeneration.

Within our 24/25 we committed to working across the four nations on banning the sale of single use vapes (SUV) as well as the .

SUV’s have been linked to a rapid increase in the number of young people vaping, particularly due to their low price. The SUV ban will be implemented from 1 June 2025 in line with the rest of the UK.

If passed the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, will restrict the promotion, advertisement and brand sharing of vapes.

Our Scotland-wide marketing campaign educated parents, carers and children about the dangers of vaping and increased the awareness of the harms and risks of nicotine addiction. It also contained a .

We continue to work with Young Scot to support young people to understand the risks of using tobacco and nicotine products, and raise awareness of available cessation services and avenues to support young people to stop smoking/vaping.

Through the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care, housed within NHS Education for Scotland, the Scottish Government are supporting the health workforce in rural and island areas.

A detailed programme of monthly rural specific training sessions are being delivered for multi-disciplinary rural practitioners online to ensure access for the widest group of rural practitioners across Scotland.

New rural specific training programmes are being developed and delivered to support the specific needs of the remote and rural Primary Care and community services workforce. Current programmes of work include focused support and training for remote and rural dispensing practices, new resources being developed to support Primary Care professionals to become trainers within the community and Primary Care Practice settings for Advanced Nurse, Pharmacy, and Practice Nurse Practitioners.