Transport to Health and Social Care

Document summary

During 2019 the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) undertook research to explore the transport barriers faced by disabled people and older people when accessing health and social care appointment and facilities. This work was undertaken to gather insights, find out about initiatives that worked well, and gain a better understanding of the issues and barriers facing disabled people and older people when accessing these essential services.

This research and evidence gathering involved a Transport to Health and Social Care roundtable discussion, hosted by MACS with assistance from Transport Scotland, and independently facilitated by the Scottish Government. This event brought together around 40 stakeholders, including individual disabled people, Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), Community Transport Association (CTA), Transport Scotland (TS), Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs), representatives from NHS Boards, Access Panels and Local Authorities (LAs) (detailed within Section 5 and Annex A).

We also undertook an extensive evidence gathering exercise capturing the voices of over 1000 disabled people (Section 4).

This MACS Report: Transport to Health and Social Care is a summary of the findings of this work, including 9 key issues clustered around five themes (Section 6), and 27 recommendations to Scottish Ministers and others (Section 8).