About this toolkit

Justin Hayes, Scottish Government Primary Care Policy Adviser.

Content has been checked for accessibility in line with the relevant RDS standard operating procedure. The toolkit complies with accessibility guidance and if any issues are flagged then the appropriate changes will be made.

Governance for the toolkits sits with Emergency Care Summary (ECS) Service Board in the Scottish Government.

The content of the toolkit was reviewed and signed-off by the ECS Service Board May 2026. The toolkit content will be reviewed annually by the Scottish Government Primary Care Policy Adviser and the ECS Service Board.

Minor changes will be approved by the policy adviser. More significant changes will be passed on to the ECS board for approval.

Any required changes will be carried out by the RDS team at Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

All content has been checked for copyright compliance.

Icons are sourced from Flaticon.com, accessed through the licence held by Tactuum Ltd as software provider of the RDS platform. 

A systematic process was followed to create the original Scottish Government publication. As the toolkit content comes from this publication it applies to the toolkit as well. Both the original publication and the toolkit have been signed off by the ECS Service Board.

You can provide feedback on any aspect of the toolkit using the email address in the "Key contacts" section above.

Messages received through the RDS feedback form will be forwarded by the RDS team to the toolkit key contact.

All feedback and complaints will be dealt with in appropriate timescales as defined by the Scottish Government and Healthcare Improvement Scotland policies.

The toolkit content is an update of a preexisting Scottish Government publication. No patient safety issues have been identified during the creation of the original publication or during the creation and testing of the toolkit.

Functional testing, usability testing and user acceptance testing was completed for all content in this toolkit. The toolkit was reviewed by managers as part of the testing, in April 2026.

This guidance has been developed with input from GPs, practice managers and administrative staff with an interest in future care planning, and the following stakeholders: NHS 24, Scottish Ambulance Service, Out of Hours services, Scottish Government, the Royal College of General Practitioners and Healthcare Improvement Scotland.