The recruitment and training of the psychology workforce should be prioritised and this workforce should be embedded in multidisciplinary teams supporting GP surgeries and communities. This should include all applied psychologists, including clinical, forensic, educational, counselling, health, occupational, and neuropsychology. Psychologists play a central role in developing, testing and implementing new approaches to meet the psychological needs of individuals and communities. This workforce must be supported and expanded to meet this growing need. Expanding and developing the psychological professions as an integral part of the public sector workforce must be a priority, as well as staff trained in psychological knowledge and skills, working within governance frameworks, must be a priority. This will be increasingly important following the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing this, the Scottish Government should undertake workforce modelling and benchmarking for psychology in inpatient services. The role that international workers can play is also important: Parliament should consider what worthy purpose the limitations place on the foreign psychology workforce plays.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation