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There is currently a moratorium on new apprenticeships in Scotland while work is ongoing with the Scottish Government’s post-school education and skills reform programme.

However, one of the key recommendations of the Allied Health Profession (AHP) Education and Workforce Review is to develop earn as you learn routes, which may in the future include apprenticeships. We are currently working closely with partners including Higher Education Institutions, Health Boards, Further Education and the Scottish Funding Council to progress this issue.

Progress has already been made to tackle workforce shortages in podiatry through the creation of a collaborative earn as you learn route at Glasgow Caledonian University. Health Boards are able to identify and send employees to train to become a podiatrist whilst remaining in the workforce and receiving full employee benefits of their local Board area.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government is currently collaborating with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and wider stakeholders on the development of Next Generation HNC for AHP subjects. This work is providing the opportunity to take forward initial developments across three AHP professions and potentially offers a first step towards a recognised earn and learn progression route. It is currently in its early stages of development.

The Scottish Government supports and works closely with Food Standards Scotland, who have previously run national campaigns over winter months to raise awareness of vitamin D and encourage people to take a daily vitamin D supplement to maintain bone and muscle health.

Since April 2017, Scottish Government has provided free Healthy Start vitamins for women for the whole of their pregnancy. These were developed to meet their nutritional needs, and include vitamins C, D and Folic Acid. Since Jan 2021, Health Boards have provided free vitamin D to all breastfeeding mothers and children under three years.

The Scottish Government believes that all women in Scotland should have access to abortion services as part of routine healthcare, and understands that the choice to have a surgical abortion is important. The 2021 Women’s Health Plan sought to achieve the overarching priority that ‘all women will have a choice about how and where they access abortion care’. We intend to build upon this as we move into the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan, and have been doing significant work with NHS Boards and other stakeholders to deliver these commitments.

The Scottish Government continues to work with Health Boards to understand surgical abortion capacity. In late 2024, all territorial Health Boards were asked to complete a survey setting out their surgical abortion availability, along with other information on overall demand for abortion services.

From this survey, it is apparent that bed space can be a contributing factor to limited surgical abortion provision, but is unlikely to be a significant factor. Theatre availability and clinical training are more significant barriers, and the Scottish Government is working with Health Boards and other key stakeholders such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to improve training opportunities to increase provision of these services.

The Scottish Government has also raised the importance of access to early surgical abortions with NHS Board Chief Executives. The information gathered through the survey will be presented back to Board Chief Executives in due course, to help inform Boards’ decisions on where surgical abortion provision could be increased.

The Scottish Government believes that all women in Scotland should have access to abortion services, available free from stigma.

In the 2023 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government committed to undertake a review of the law on abortion to ensure that it is first and foremost a healthcare matter. That review is now underway.

As part of the review, the Scottish Government has convened an expert group chaired by Professor Anna Glasier, the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Champion. The expert group is reviewing the existing law on abortion in Scotland and will produce a report for the Scottish Government this Summer.. If the group considers that the law could be changed for the better, the report will include recommendations for reform.

The Scottish Government will consider the expert group’s report and take into account views of other stakeholders and other relevant considerations too. Any proposals for changes to abortion law would be subject to a public consultation.

Details of the expert group, including minutes of their meetings are published on the Scottish Government website here: .

Cervical self-sampling is not yet recommended by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), the independent expert advisory group which advises all four UK nations on screening policy, and therefore is not currently offered within the cervical screening programme. However, the UK NSC are currently consulting on whether cervical self-sampling should be offered to under-screened people eligible for cervical screening.

In preparation for a positive UK NSC recommendation, Screening Oversight and Assurance Scotland are re-establishing the self-sampling working group, whose remit will include assessing implementation options in light of new evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches, and ensuring that communications around a potential roll-out are inclusive and supportive.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government and its partners continue to explore alternative interventions that seek to encourage increased uptake of cervical screening, particularly among under- and never-screened populations. We published the in July 2023 that outlines a strategic approach to identifying, addressing and removing barriers to participants across the screening pathway, and ensuring that professionals working within screening are knowledgeable of and use effective interventions to reduce these inequalities. To support this, the Equity in Screening Network was also launched in July 2023, allowing individuals that work across screening to share evidence, best practice and learning around screening inequalities.

Finally, as part of the Scottish Government’s work to eliminate cervical cancer, an expert group on cervical screening is exploring the effectiveness of a range of strategies to increase cervical screening uptake, and are currently considering how different media interventions could remove stigma and fear for all participants.

Addressing inequalities in HPV vaccine uptake and optimising opportunities for young people to receive the vaccine is a priority for the Scottish Government.

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) not only cause cervical cancer but can also cause other diseases including anogenital and head and neck cancers. These are less common but are equally significant for those affected. To increase everyone’s protection against these cancers, the HPV vaccination offer was extended to all young people in 2019, although recent show that boys are still less likely than girls to take up the offer.

Completion of consent forms is required to participate in school vaccination programmes. We therefore welcomed the return of the recent Public Health Scotland (PHS) marketing campaign, “chat.sign.protect”, to raise awareness of vaccines offered in secondary school and encourage an increase in the numbers of parents and young people consenting to vaccination. Coinciding with the distribution of informed consent materials to young people, the campaign aims to increase understanding of why these vaccines are important, the seriousness of the diseases they protect against and encourage parents and carers to take action and sign consent forms to ensure our young people receive the protection offered by immunisation.

The Scottish Government has established an Expert Working Group to recommend how Scotland can eliminate cervical cancer. Actions that come out of this work are likely to support increased uptake of the HPV vaccine by males.

We are working with PHS and territorial Health Boards to consider what further actions can be taken to increase vaccination uptake in boys, support those eligible for vaccination, and to address any inequalities in accessing immunisation services.

The Scottish Government fully recognises the role that alcohol plays as a cause or risk factor for a number of illnesses and health conditions.

• The Scottish Government has taken action to reduce the harms caused by alcohol including the recent increase to the minimum unit price of alcohol from 30 September 2024. The Public Health Scotland (PHS) evaluation of that policy estimated that it had saved hundreds of lives during the period the evaluation reviewed.
• The Scottish Government has maintained a record £112m to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) for a wide range of measures, including alcohol treatment services, to ensure that local services meet the needs of people who experience alcohol and drugs harms.
• The Scottish Government continues to support the online ‘Count 14’ tool which raises awareness of the UK CMO Guidance on alcohol consumption, in addition to providing an online unit calculator. Count 14 materials continue to be used by a range of partners to support public health messaging on alcohol.
• The Scottish Government provides funding for the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Hub which provides support, training and advice to families, carers and professionals supporting children affected by FASD, the first of its kind in the UK.
• The Scottish Government is also supporting innovation in early detection of liver disease, working in partnership with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) and local Health Boards, building on learning taken from the innovative intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) pilot pioneered by NHS Tayside.

The SCAD pilot clinic has received 82 referrals with 57 patients seen to date. The remainder of patients currently referred will be seen by the end of July 2025.

An evaluation report will be requested by end of May 2025 to assess impact. The project team have advised that the first year of the pilot demonstrated a change in diagnosis for 20% of patients and 60% were able to have their medication reduced. Referrer and patient feedback is collected after completion of care episodes.

Scottish Government and Food Standards Scotland officials met in January 2025 to discuss possible further action to promote vitamin D supplements during winter months. This included consideration of current ongoing activity, such as the previous FSS winter campaigns as well as additional opportunities for future action to raise awareness of current advice on vitamin D, especially for at risk groups.

The Scottish Government supports and works closely with Food Standards Scotland, who have previously run national campaigns over winter months to raise awareness of vitamin D and encourage people to take a daily vitamin D supplement to maintain bone and muscle health.

The campaign primarily focuses on online advertising and social media posts. A campaign toolkit has also been developed and shared with a wide range of stakeholders to help support efforts to raise awareness of vitamin D, with graphics, web text, and social media posts available in nine languages ().

Information on vitamin D is also available and promoted through a range of resources. Dedicated public advice on vitamin D is available on NHS Inform, including a general information leaflet highlighting the importance of vitamin D, which is available in a range of formats and languages ().

Additional information can be accessed through our Parent Club () and Ready, Steady Baby! () resources, Food Standards Scotland

() website and

Eat Well, Your Way ().