Action Plan launched to address health and transport challenges

Published: 03/02/2025 15:31

A refreshed Health & Transport Action Plan (HTAP) for the Grampian region has been launched today (Monday, 3 February 2025), building on over 15 years of partnership working between key health and transport partners in the north east.

The plan supports co-ordination between transport providers and health and social care services, as they look to improve health and transport services, align strategies and improve health outcomes.

HTAP Partners include NHS Grampian, Nestrans, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray Councils and Health and Social Care Partnerships, the third sector, and commercial transport operators.

Partners work together on key areas including supporting people to walk, bike or use other forms of active travel to stay healthy. They aim to reduce the impacts of the way we travel on our health and the environment. Additionally, they focus on making it easier, and more sustainable, for people to get to health and social care services when they need them.

NHS Grampian remains the only Scottish Health Board to have such an arrangement in place with all key stakeholders engaged.

The updated document reflects the changing health and transport priorities following the COVID-19 pandemic and sets out a five-year plan.

Over the coming years the HTAP group will focus on developing a regional Centre for Excellence for Health and Transport, providing a co-ordinating role for projects across the region, promoting stronger strategic alignment and data sharing, and delivering exemplars of best practice.

Lynsey Martin, chair of the HTAP Steering Group, and Consultant in Public Health, NHS Grampian, said, “It is important we build on the work done in Grampian to improve health outcomes, reduce inequalities and improve patient access to services. The new HTAP has been co-produced through extensive consultation with stakeholders and we’re grateful to all involved for their input. HTAP has developed strong relationships between partners, and it is our partnership working that is essential to achieving better outcomes.”

Rab Dickson, vice chair of the HTAP Steering Group and Director of Nestrans, said, “We face some considerable challenges, including serving communities in remote and rural areas, an aging population, and higher demand for health and social care services. This is combined with communities impacted by the cost of living, by transport poverty and inequalities. The way that HTAP partners collaborate is quite a distinctive arrangement which has attracted interest from counterparts across Scotland. It sets us in a strong position to tackle what lies ahead and bring tangible improvements to health and transport across the region.”

The Grampian Health and Transport Action Plan can be viewed online at: https://www.nestrans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Health-Transport-Action-Plan-2024-2029.pdf

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The Grampian Health and Transport Action plan was first produced in 2008.
For full details on the project, visit: https://www.nestrans.org.uk/projects/health-and-transport/

For more information about HTAP, please contact: andrew.stewart@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

HTAP Partners include NHS Grampian, Nestrans, Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeenshire Council, Moray Council, Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership, Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Moray Health and Social Care Partnership, Community Transport Association, Scottish Ambulance Service, Aberdeenshire Voluntary Action (on behalf of all three Third Sector Interface bodies), and the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland. The HTAP steering group is supported by sub groups which include additional organisations including academia, voluntary organisations, and commercial bus operators.

HTAP has supported projects including the Transport to Healthcare Information Centre (THInC) and ‘THInC in the City’, projects which help overcome any barriers patients have in travelling to health and social care appointments. The projects were designed following a Nestrans study in 2007 which had concluded that transport issues were the biggest single reason why people missed, turned down, or chose not to seek medical help. Further information on THInC available at: THInC – Travel advice for Health and Social Care appointments

HTAP also hosts the Grampian Volunteer Transport Awards, which champion and celebrate the important work of volunteer drivers and escorts across community transport in Grampian.

HTAP was shortlisted for Partnership Team of the Year at the Scottish Transport Awards in 2024.

The Transport to Healthcare Information Centre (THInC) project received a Bronze award at the COSLA Excellence Awards in 2018, which celebrate the best in Scottish Local Government and their quality of service to the public.