The Scottish Government

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4 A HEALTHIER SCOTLAND

Scotland can be healthier, with the benefits of that better health felt in a higher quality of life for families and communities across the country.

We believe that effective health policy is as much about preventing ill-health as treating it. That is why we will ensure a sharper focus on improving public health and reducing inequalities, as well as on ensuring good quality and timely treatment and care.

Improving our nation's health is undoubtedly a significant challenge. The facts tell their own story. We need to accelerate the rate of improvement in the health of the people of Scotland generally, but also address much more effectively the growing disparity in health and life expectancy between the richest and poorest in our country.

This government has already taken some decisive steps toward helping people sustain and improve their health - especially in disadvantaged communities - and to ensure better, local and faster access to health care.

By continuing to make progress towards this objective, we will also go some way to meeting our commitments in other areas too. For example, if Scotland's people are healthier, they will be much more likely to make a contribution to growing our economy, and therefore to the achievement of our related objective of making our nation wealthier and fairer.

Our approach to improving Scotland's health involves:

• Improving our patients' experience of care, with both patients and their carers being involved in the design and delivery of care provided as locally as possible. Central to this process will be consultation on the introduction of a Patients' Rights Bill designed to achieve a balanced relationship between health care providers and the patients who use NHS services;
• Securing best value from our investment by maximising efficiency and productivity;
• Encouraging everybody to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing;
• Tackling health inequalities, with a sharper focus on identifying at-risk communities and people with multiple and complex needs;
• Working in partnership to extend the provision of anticipatory care and improve services for people at greatest risk of ill health and those with long-term conditions;
• Focusing on early intervention to give children the best possible start in life and tackle early the risk factors that lead to ill-health in later life; and
• Ensuring continuous improvement of services, with a determined focus on patient safety and shorter waiting times.

During our first 100 days in government, we have taken a number of important steps toward making Scotland healthier:

• We announced the continuation of A&E services at Ayr and Monklands hospitals, reversing the previous administration's decision to close these services;
• We launched a national discussion, Better Health, Better Care, to identify future priorities for health and wellbeing and develop an action plan to meet our strategic objective;
• We proposed independent scrutiny of key NHS service change proposals, to help give individuals and communities confidence that proposals will be rigorously reviewed and their interests taken fully into account;
• We announced our commitment to a new 18-week waiting time guarantee, covering the entire patient pathway from referral by a GP to admission to hospital, by the end of 2011 - as well as confirming the abolition of hidden waiting lists by the end of 2007;
• We have begun discussions with NHS Boards and the BMA to increase flexibility and improve the delivery of out-of-hours services and we have encouraged the localisation of NHS 24;
• We established a Ministerial Task Force to refresh our approach to tackling health inequalities;
• We made clear to NHS Boards that we expect them to deliver the 62-day cancer target from December 2007; and
• We established the Sutherland Review to look at the funding of free personal care.

Of course, improving our health is a long-term challenge. However, in the Parliamentary year ahead, this government will bring forward a number of proposals, some of which will involve legislation, for discussion and approval so that we can continue to put Scotland on the road to better health:

• We will begin the process of comprehensively modernising Scotland's public health legislation. This is currently set out in a number of Acts dating back to 1897 and is therefore no longer fit for the modern public health challenges we face;
• We will ensure that our comprehensive health strategy - to be published by the year end - will equip the health service for the challenges of the future: an ageing population; a growth in long term conditions; and widening health inequalities. The strategy will also inform our approach to the delivery of key commitments such as the phasing out of prescription charges; the setting of the binding 18-week waiting time guarantee; more flexible access to primary care, including GP appointments; the raising of the legal age for buying tobacco from 16 to 18; and the introduction of health checks in schools, starting in the most disadvantaged areas. We will present the secondary legislation on several of these measures as it is required;
• We will consult on our proposals for a Patients' Rights Bill which will bring greater accountability to our health service, give patients more rights and give legal effect to waiting time guarantees;
• We will consult on proposals to give greater patient and community involvement in how local health services are delivered, including through participation in direct elections to Scotland's Health Boards. This will lead to the introduction of a Local Healthcare Bill;
• We will treat the misuse of alcohol in Scotland as one of the most significant challenges that we face; not just in terms of the health implications but also its close association to issues such as violent crime. Therefore, over the coming year, we will develop our action plan on alcohol and set out a radical range of measures to reduce alcohol-related harm;
• We will continue to give our support to Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games Bid, both as a means to promote Scotland on the world stage and as a way of providing the facilities and the inspiration to get more Scots physically active. Should the bid be successful this autumn, we will introduce legislation to Parliament to help ensure Glasgow 2014 is the most successful Games yet;
• We are examining the Emergency Workers Act, with a view to enhancing the protection provided and extending it to vulnerable health workers and primary care staff; and
• We will bring forward a comprehensive series of measures on housing, including proposals for reform of the social housing sector so that it is better placed to meet the needs of tenants. We believe that everyone in Scotland should be able to have a secure, warm home at a cost they can afford - and, further, that there is a clear link between a healthy community and the availability of decent quality of housing for all.

In the Parliamentary year ahead, we will also publish our Strategic Spending Review which will set out in much more detail our plans to achieve a healthier Scotland through making the best and most effective use of the resources we have.

Over the coming year, we will continue to improve our health and wellbeing as a nation. Across the political spectrum there is already consensus about the health challenges that face us, as well as broad agreement about what needs to be done.

By working with others across Parliament, and by continuing to make the case to agree collectively on the deep roots of some of these issues, this SNP government will make more progress over the year ahead, and begin to put Scotland further on the path to a healthier future.

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