8. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the benefits of the project, general practitioners at the deep end, which is being carried out in deprived communities. (S4O-03708)

We welcome the work of the deep-end group of GPs, in particular their recommendations on how we can tackle inequalities in the most deprived areas of Scotland. One of the recommendations was to have link workers in general practice who would signpost and support patients to sources of support in the community and relieve some of the burden on GPs. We have committed to funding that project for five years.

Recognising the challenges in the national general medical services contract in relation to practices whose patients face the greatest inequalities, the Scottish Government has also significantly altered the 2014-15 GMS contract to free up those practitioners so that they can devote more time to the complex problems of their patients.

We are working closely with the deep-end group and with other national health service organisations to develop the most appropriate solutions for areas of deprivation.

I was going to refer to the link worker project in my supplementary. I visited a project in Possilpark with the Cabinet secretary to see the good work that link workers have been doing. He mentioned that the programme is being funded for five years. Initially, it was for seven practices in the deep-end 100 most deprived communities. Is that being extended further? What review has there been of the scheme? Can I look forward to more patients with complex health needs across the Glasgow region, who would definitely benefit from link workers, seeing an enhancement of that service in the years to come?

I am sure that the member recognised during his visit that a key part of the programme is the evaluation of the link worker role to see how link workers can be used most effectively. Initially, the link worker programme was to be run for about three years. We discussed it with the deep-end practice team and they felt that a five-year programme would be much more effective in allowing the overall benefits to be evaluated. We have therefore extended the programme for a further two years.

Alongside that provision for a five-year period, we have commissioned the University of Glasgow to undertake an evaluation over the initial two to three years of the link worker programme. Once we have that initial evaluation, we will be in a position to make a decision about rolling out the programme to other deep-end practices and to consider what model is the most effective way for link workers to operate in those deep-end practices.

I assure the member that we are determined to do what we can to support these practices, which are working in our most deprived communities, and to do so in a way that delivers the most effective change to allow them to improve their care of patients, many of whom have very complex health needs. Evaluation work will then inform how we can look at rolling out the programme across more of our deep-end practices in Scotland.