Updated on 28 May with details of each minister's portfolio.

The names of the remaining members of the Scottish government’s health and care team have been announced by the First Minister.

The portfolio will be overseen by Angela Constance who becomes Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care.

The word ‘social’ is dropped from the job titles of her two ministers.

Maree Todd is appointed Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol & Drugs, while Alison Thewliss is Minister for Community Care.

Ms Todd has experience of all the areas named in her new job title from previous ministerial roles, first as Minister for Public Health, Women's Health and Sport (2021 to 2023), Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport (2023 to 2025) and, most recently, Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and Sport.

Having lost her Caithness, Sutherland and Ross seat to the Liberal Democrats, Ms Todd returned to Holyrood on the Highlands and Islands ‘list’, the only SNP MSP to be elected on the regional vote.

Before entering parliament in 2016, she worked as a specialist psychiatric pharmacist in Inverness.

Alison Thewliss is a new entrant to the Scottish parliament having been elected to Glasgow Central, a constituency she had previously served as MP at Westminster from 2015 only to see her seat broken up under a boundaries review. She then stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in Glasgow North in the 2024 Labour landslide election.

With a degree in politics and international relations from the University of Aberdeen, she was employed as a parliamentary researcher and was elected to Glasgow council in 2007.

It emerged as teh new ministers were being announced that Jenni Minto, most recently Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, wrote to the First Minister before he began naming his cabinet and ministers, saying she did not want to return to the government. Instead, she said, she wanted to spend more time in her Argyll and Bute constituency, saying “…it is a large geographical area with many rural and island areas, which I believe I can best serve through my full attention at this time”.

Responsibilities

Ms Todd's role as Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs gives her oversight of:

• public health and healthy working lives
• population health
• women's health
• abortion
• child and maternal health
• mental wellbeing policy and strategy
• Mental Welfare Commission
• child and adolescent mental health
• suicide prevention
• forensic mental health services and reform
• dementia
• augmentative and alternative communication
• social prescribing
• healthy weight
• sexual health
• reducing the harm of problem substance use and supporting the treatment rehabilitation and recovery from alcohol and/or drug dependency, reducing drug deaths
• sport and physical activity

As Minister for Community Care, Ms Thewliss will be responsible for:

• community care
• social care and integration, social service workforce
• community audiology, optometry, pharmacy
• dentistry
• medical records
• mobile healthcare
• MyNHS digital
• National Pharmaceutical Agency and Pharmacy First
• palliative care
• vaccination programmes
• sensory impairment/loss
• self-directed support
• care, support and rights
• adult support and protection
• Care Inspectorate
• Independent Living Fund

The choice of ‘community care’ instead of the broader term ‘social care’ in Ms Thewliss’ title may or may not be deliberate. For some with long memories, ‘community care’ is associated with the policy of replacing institutional care with care in people’s communities.

Life Sciences

For the first time in recent years, Life Sciences are not listed as a specific responsibility of any minister or cabinet secretary.

As there has been no move to bring the sector under the health and care portfolio, the life sciences brief will continue to amongst the responsibilities of Stephen Flynn, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport, and Minister for Business & Fair Work, Tom Arthur, most recently Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing.

Mr Flynn’s responsibilities include

• business, industry, manufacturing support and entrepreneurship
• enterprise agencies, and
• inward investment and global capital investment

Mr Arthur’s portfolio includes:

• business support, policy and promotion
• inward investment and global capital investment
• digital economy, strategy, participation, connectivity.

 

Read more: Care Reform Bill: a step, not a leap; New social care minister appointed; Minister: NCS has exposed "polar opposite" views; Are ministers divided on council care service exit?

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