A consultation on the draft National Action Plan on Neurological Conditions (2019-2024)

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with neurological conditions have access to the best possible care and support.

On 13 November 2018, we published a draft National Action Plan on Neurological Conditions for consultation, setting out 17 commitments across five aims. We asked you whether the Plan’s vision, scope, aims and approach represented the right priorities and what we needed to change to improve the Plan.

We received 145 replies to the consultation, of which 49 were from organisations and 96 from individuals. 

Almost all respondents agreed with the vision, a majority agreed with the scope, and a large majority agreed with the approach. A consultation report providing a full summary of the views and themes received is available on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/neurological-care-support-scotland-consultation-report/.

You told us that by only referencing some neurological conditions as examples in the draft, particularly in regards to prevalence estimates, it created uncertainty about what conditions were covered by the Plan and this also affected whether you could identify with its aims and commitments.

Some respondents also felt that children and young people should be included in the Plan to ensure parity in services across all age groups. In this regard you asked for clearer links to other strategies and policy areas, as well as for us to set out definitions of the terminology used in the Plan.    

You also asked for clarity about the Plan’s leadership and governance, how progress would be monitored and measured, and for sufficient resources to be allocated to implement it.

During 2019, we carried out an extensive exercise to review your responses and to work with the National Advisory Committee on Neurological Conditions and across Scottish Government policy directorates to refine the Plan’s content. In doing so we have renamed the Plan ‘Neurological Care and Support in Scotland – A Framework for Action’, which is available to view at https://www.gov.scot/publications/neurological-care-support-scotland-framework-action-2020-2025/. This aligns it with the title of the Healthcare Improvement Scotland Neurological Care and Support standards, as well as other recently published national strategies that are titled frameworks. It will also avoid confusion between this document and an Implementation Plan that we intend to publish in 2020.

In response to your feedback, we have made the commitments more concise and focused – and by including early priorities against each aim, we have explained how we plan to start implementing these in the first year. Further detail has also been included about how we will use the quality management model to monitor and measure progress.

As the Framework is not condition specific, we have removed references to specific neurological conditions throughout the document. Instead we clarify that the Framework is relevant to all neurological conditions defined as such by the World Health Organisation and the international classification codes.

We have additionally taken on board that people with some neurological conditions, who contributed to the lived experience survey that we commissioned from the Health and Social Care Alliance, felt their experiences and views had not been adequately represented within the challenges and priorities highlighted in the draft National Action Plan. The Framework therefore seeks to rectify this and ensure that everyone living with a neurological condition in Scotland can identify with the overview of current challenges and understands how this work aims to benefit them personally.

The process to finalise the Framework has enabled us to forge closer links with other strategies and policy areas, including those for children and young people. A glossary has also been added to the Framework to provide definitions and greater clarity about the terminology referenced in the document.