4. To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring that opportunities for continuing professional development are regularly available to healthcare professionals. (S6O-02287)

NHS Scotland staff have access to good-quality training and professional development opportunities through clinical training and our Turas learning platform. All staff can expect support from their employer to help them to acquire new skills to meet the demands of their post.

Our personal development planning and review policy is being refreshed as part of the once for Scotland policy programme, to ensure that learning opportunities are available to NHS Scotland staff. An agenda for change review is also being conducted, in which protected time for learning is an immediate priority area.

Throughout my time on the Health and Sport Committee and the Public Petitions Committee, I heard consistent calls for general practitioners and other healthcare professionals to receive more information on a range of conditions such as ME, Lyme disease and Huntington’s disease. At the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, there has been a call for GPs to receive specific training so that they can recognise long Covid. However, regular CPD sessions stopped during Covid while our healthcare professionals dealt with that single issue.

The chief executive of NHS Ayrshire and Arran told me that we must restore CPD opportunities for GPs if we are to retain them. What will the Scottish Government do to restore CPD opportunities for our GPs in order to give them the tools that they require to ensure the very best healthcare?

We provide a range of training opportunities, and NHS Education for Scotland has a considerable level of online programmes and in-person training available for healthcare professionals, including GPs, covering a range of areas. As part of their CPD work, general practitioners are required to ensure that they maintain their knowledge of new and developing conditions.

As we recover from the pandemic, we want greater progress on the scope for more training provision. That is why some of the work that we are doing through the once for Scotland policy programme and the agenda for change review is to ensure that we provide healthcare professionals across NHS Scotland with a much broader range of training.