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Future Practice: A Review of the Scottish Medical Workforce
COMMISSIONING THE REVIEW
Themes:
This Review is part of wider efforts to improve workforce planning and development in NHSScotland.
It focuses on the development of the medical workforce within a multi-professional context.
It is based on extensive evidence from questionnaire and focus groups.
It proposes directions of travel and priorities for action.
It is a report to the Scottish Executive. Its findings and recommendations are made independently of the Executive.
This Review was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Health Department (SEHD) as part of
a wider effort to improve the way the health service workforce in Scotland is planned and developed.
The SEHD's policies for improving the health of Scotland are set out in
Our National Health1 and its proposals for better workforce planning have recently been published
2. Together they emphasise the need to integrate the planning of services with the planning of the workforce needed to support them. They call for the comprehensive, multidisciplinary development of the workforce to support a team approach to service delivery. At the same time they recognise the vital role of separate health professions and the need for a uni-professional focus in their development.
The Review was tasked to take these policies forward by focusing on the development of the medical workforce in Scotland, but by doing so firmly within the wider, multidisciplinary context.
Professor John Temple was invited by the Minister for Health and Community Care to lead a fundamental review of medical workforce planning and to make a preliminary report. He was given freedom to determine the method and scope of the Review, while taking into account the following strategic requirements:
providing an integrated approach to workforce planning for Scotland as a whole, recognising differing local and regional challenges;
focusing on different ways of working for both doctors and other health professionals;
ensuring a practical approach that will secure the right capacity of an appropriately skilled medical workforce to meet future needs;
establishing priorities for targeting investment in the medical workforce to deliver visible value and improved services;
reviewing the numbers entering and the pathways through basic medical education; and
recognising how NHS UK medical workforce issues can be accommodated and managed without detriment to Scotland.
Professor Temple has led the Review with a small
Advisory Group of individuals selected by him from varied backgrounds (
Annex A). As a group it took evidence through questionnaire and focus group discussion (
Annex B). The Group was pleased to receive additional information from a number of individuals and expert groups. The response from the wide range of people consulted, inside and outside NHSScotland, has been very positive, constructive and heartening. This is the report of that review. It can also be found on the SEHD web site
3.
Scottish Executive Health Department
July 2002
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