The Programme for Government 2024-25: Serving Scotland includes:
- Investing nearly £1bn a year in early learning and childcare.
- Working towards further expanding free school meals to those in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment in Primary 6 and Primary 7 and providing £21.75 million for free school meal alternatives in all school holidays for eligible families.
- Increasing Health Boards’ baselined funding and targeting further additional funding to reduce the longest waits – expected to deliver an additional 40,000 diagnostic procedures, 12,000 other procedures, and 12,000 new outpatient appointments.
- Providing £120 million of additional funding for NHS Boards to support continued improvements across a range of mental health services and treatments, including meeting the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services waiting times standard nationally, with backlogs cleared by December 2025.
- Reviewing and reforming the Junior Doctor and Dentist contract, bringing forward recommendations on a Pay Review mechanism.
- Collaborating across the four nations on banning the sale of single use vapes and the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and restrict the promotion of vapes.
RCPCH President and Consultant Paediatrician in Aberdeen, Professor Steve Turner, said:
The Scottish Government’s focus and continued commitment to end child poverty is welcome. Poverty robs children of a healthy childhood, and its effects are often felt long into adulthood. To make a real change for children and young people, we must see greater investment and address the effects poverty has on education, housing and social environment. We are disappointed that the Scottish Child Payment remains unchanged. As a college we had also hoped the government would deliver on its commitment of universal free school meals for all primary school children. The dilution of this policy commitment is concerning.
We are pleased to see a strong commitment to continue with the Tobacco and Vapes Bill in Scotland. Scotland and the UK continue to lead the world on tobacco reform. This Bill provides us with a once in a generation opportunity to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our children and future society. RCPCH stands ready to support this groundbreaking legislation.
Finally, we’re encouraged to see plans to increase capacity and access to primary care as well as the acknowledgment of the value that multi-disciplinary working can provide. However, we really need to see an investment in child health services in the community and in hospitals. Children and their health services continue to be forgotten in NHS Scotland. Our report, Worried & Waiting: Scotland, highlighted serious waiting times for children and young people trying to access waits for paediatric outpatients, inpatients and day appointments. Our workforce requires urgent attention and focus to improve health outcomes for children and young people in Scotland.