Scottish Care to give MSPs evidence on six pressures facing social care

Evidence goes to Holyrood committee

Scottish Care is to submit new evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Health, Social Care and Sport Committee on Wednesday 9 September 2026. The paper is titled Social Care in Scotland: The Reality Behind the Reform Debate. The announcement, published on 8 September 2026, says it sets out "the significant challenges facing social care across Scotland" and calls for reform to be "matched by investment, capacity and long-term sustainability".

The submission draws on evidence gathered from providers across Scotland. Scottish Care says it highlights concerns around delayed access to care, increasing complexity of need, workforce pressures and the growing challenge of financial sustainability.

Six challenges

The paper outlines six interconnected challenges currently affecting the sector:

• Increasing difficulty accessing care and support.
• Growing complexity of care needs.
• Ongoing workforce shortages.
• Mounting financial pressures on providers.
• Financial challenges within Health and Social Care Partnerships.
• The risk that reform will fail unless accompanied by investment and capacity-building measures.

What Scottish Care is asking for

The submission sets out a series of recommendations for Government, Parliament and public bodies. According to the announcement, these include:

• a transparent true-cost-of-care framework;
• a fully funded workforce strategy;
• improved involvement of independent sector providers in decision-making;
• stronger accountability for delivery of reform.

The argument

Scottish Care says there is broad agreement on the outcomes Scotland wants to achieve, including greater prevention, improved wellbeing and reduced pressure on hospitals. The paper argues these ambitions "can only be realised if social care has the workforce, funding and infrastructure required to deliver them".

The announcement sums up the submission's central message in these terms: "the challenge facing Scotland is not whether social care should be reformed, but whether the country is prepared to invest in and sustain the social care capacity needed to make that reform a reality."

What this means for providers

The announcement does not set out any new requirements for providers. It is a representative body's evidence to a parliamentary committee, not a government or regulator document, and it contains no dates, deadlines or figures beyond the submission date. Scottish Care says the full paper is available to read on its website.