The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a range of actions from the Health Works policy, recognising the important links between good work and good health. The Scottish Government's Health Works strategy document establishes the vision for defining a "Scottish Offer".
A key aim of the Scottish Offer is to ensure that people can get access to the right support in a timely manner to enable their health condition to be addressed, and then moved on effectively into other support services as required to allow for remaining in, returning to or entry into sustainable employment. It will set out what health services should be provided to help people with health barriers to employment, standards that they should be delivered to, how they can be accessed and the links to wider services such as employability.
The Scottish Offer is being developed in partnership with NHSScotland, COSLA and Jobcentre Plus in Scotland.
In April 2010 the first Health Works "Scottish Offer" National Forum meeting took place. The Forum was established to look at how best to take this forward. From this meeting it was agreed that progress would be made through two Workstreams. You can view the report from this meeting along with the report from Workstream 1, which focussed on defining the Offer and what it should look like, e.g access, services and pathways, etc. You can also view the both reports from Workstream 2 (report,report), which focussed on delivering the Offer and what we need to do to get there, e.g leadership and tools for the job, etc.
The "Scottish Offer" National Forum met again on 2 November 2010. The meeting was held to assess the progress made by the two Scottish Offer Workstreams, established at the National Forum's inaugural meeting in April 2010, and to determine the next steps required to drive work forward. The report from this meeting has been issued to delegates along with the presentation by Anne Hendry, National Clinical Lead for Quality, on NHSScotland Quality Strategy and Health Works.
The National Forum last met on 26 January 2012. The meeting was held to provide an update on the prgress that had been made over the last year and to provide an opportunity for members to come together to discuss and exchange good practice. The report and presentations from this meeting are available on the Health and Work website.