The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Dr Gregor Smith, has released his first annual report Recover, Restore, Renew. The report is focused around five key themes: the health of the nation, delivering personalised care, reducing health inequalities, sustainability of our workforce, and green and sustainable healthcare.
Professor Angela Thomas OBE, Acting President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, said:
“The CMO has taken this opportunity to reflect on shared experiences of the pandemic and highlight areas of good practice and innovation over the last year, while also identifying areas that require more attention. The College’s manifesto for the 2021 Scottish Parliament emphasised the importance of this analysis and it is welcome to see the CMO acknowledge this in his report.
The annual report also maintains a focus on realistic medicine, and describes some of the actions taken in 2020-21 to embed realistic medicine in everyday practice. Personalising medicine and empowering patient choice have been extremely important during the pandemic, but also very challenging and this too has been recognised in the report.
The CMO acknowledges the pressures placed by COVID-19 on the health and wellbeing of the medical workforce and we would encourage the Scottish Government to support the creation of an independent working group to assess the short, medium and long-term impact of the pandemic on the health and care workforce. We all must play our part to help healthcare workers get the support and resources they need in the post-COVID recovery to train, to research, to learn and to continue delivering quality care outcomes for people across Scotland.”
