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Petition on community link worker cuts

  • Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 17th October 2023
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Petition urges Scottish Government to take action on proposed cuts to the service.

The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee has taken PE2053: Stop the cuts to community link workers and help secure their long-term future within GP practice teams under consideration. The petition urges the government to take action to ensure that the number and hours of current community link workers serving the most deprived communities are not cut in the next financial year. It also calls on the government to take binding steps to secure long-term funding for community link workers in GP practices across Scotland.

Community link workers (CLWs) are based in GP surgeries across Scotland. They offer patients help with housing, benefits, debt, food insecurity, fuel poverty, physical inactivity, loneliness, abuse and much more when these impact on their health. They also listen to people about what they need to be well, and support them to achieve this. This allows doctors and healthcare staff to focus more of their time on diagnosing and treating medical conditions.

Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) plan to cut the number of CLWs by at least one third from April 2024. Across Scotland, the funding for community link workers is short term, insecure and unstable, meaning this is not a local budgetary decision, but one rooted in national funding arrangements.

The gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest in Scotland has never been wider. We believe cuts in CLW numbers during a cost-of-living crisis will only widen these health inequalities.

You can sign your support for the petition on the Scottish Parliament website.

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