Health Secretary Shona Robison has announced her intention to produce a long-term plan for the NHS showing what services will need to look like in a decade.
The blueprint will include projections showing the staff and resources that will be required to meet the needs of the growing elderly population.
For 18 months, The Herald has been calling for a review to look at the capacity both health and social care services will need as the number of frail increases.
In Holyrood, Ms Robison conceded that not enough progress had been made towards moving more healthcare into the community to prevent people becoming acutely unwell.
She spoke about the need for a step change, saying in the next 10 to five years "the service will have to be different from the service we have provided in the last 10 years".
Ms Robison said the current policy known as the "2020 Vision" for health and social care - which has cross-party agreement - was still the right direction of travel.
However, she continued: "What is clear to me is that as a nation we are not making sufficient progress quickly enough towards it and also we need to be clearer on how we are going to deliver that vision and the step changes that are required to get us there. I also believe we need to raise our eyes beyond that horizon and look at what success will look like over a 10 or 15 year longer time frame."
She went on to announce her intention to develop the longer term plan, adding: "This will include planning what capacity is required where and what the workforce is needed to look like to deliver the services."
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