Health and Social Care Directorates


The Health and Social Care Directorates are a group of directorates of the Scottish Government. They are responsible for NHS Scotland, as well as policies on the development and implementation of health and social care.
The Chief Executive of NHS Scotland and Director-General of the Scottish Government's Health and Social Care Directorates is Malcolm Wright.
There is a direct relationship between Ministers and the Directorates, but this relationship is not consistent across the Government as there is often no direct read across to Ministerial portfolios from DGs. The activities of these Directorates are under the purview of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. She is assisted in this work by the Minister for Mental Health and the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing.

Structure

The current Directorates are:
As well as responsibility for the regional health boards of NHS Scotland, the Directorates also have responsibility for:
There are six chief professional officers:
The Scottish Executive Health Department was created in 1999 from the former Scottish Office Health Department . The separate departments in the Scottish Government were abolished in 2007 and replaced with Directorates. In December 2010, the functions of the Health Directorates were taken on by the Health and Social Care Directorates.