The Health and Social Care Delivery Plan sets out a series of key actions for government and local health and care services to deliver better patient care and better population health.

Key pieces of work already being taken forward are brought together in the plan including: investment in and the reform of GP services, primary care and social care services, including integration of health and social care; delivering more effective planning of NHS services; and intensifying efforts to improve public health and mental health services.

It is designed to help address the rising demand being faced by health and care services, and the changing needs of an ageing population.

It fulfils the Scottish Government’s commitment to publishing a delivery plan following the publication of Audit Scotland’s report, NHS in Scotland 2016, in October. The plan will be supported by £128 million of change funding in 2017-18.

Announcing the plan, health secretary Shona Robison said: “Over the nearly 70 years of our NHS, it has had to continually evolve with our society - and it must continue to do so.

“We have a wonderful challenge that, as a nation, our people are living longer lives than at any point in our history. That means our health and care services must change to aid increasingly more people living with multiple, complex conditions.

“Similarly, medical advances mean there are a vast number of treatment options that just weren’t available even a decade ago – with medicine becoming increasingly more specialised.

“The plan I am setting out today puts actions and timescales to an already established direction of travel which we know has the broad support of healthcare professionals, charities and patient groups.

“It recognises that we must up the pace of change if we’re to deliver modern, sustainable health services and that local health boards and integration partnerships have an important role to play in taking this forward over the next year and beyond.

“Delivery of the plan will be supported by record levels of investment in our health and care services – with extra resources for the NHS and for social care - plus dedicated funding of over £125 million in the coming year to help deliver change on the ground.

“It will also mean a shift in how we allocate these resources – with substantially more money going to our community health service in the coming years.

“We want more services and more care delivered closer to home. And when someone does require specialist care in hospital we want it to be delivered in a centre of real expertise that is underpinned by our unswerving commitment to patient safety.

“And while delivering these changes will require reforms to how boards work, and work with each other in partnership across disciplines and boundaries, we do not currently envisage our patient-facing boards being reduced in number. Instead we see our 14 territorial health boards, and NHS 24 and the Scottish Ambulance Service, focusing on delivering better care and better health for local communities, and planning together for the most specialist care.”