Scotland’s National Clinical Strategy has been released today by the government, and is deemed “bold” by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
In response, RCN Scotland director Theresa Fyffe said: “This high-level document published today brings the Government firmly behind the voice of those calling for change.”
The director deemed the changes “bold” and stated that they could potentially transform the structure and delivery of Scottish health and care services.
However, explicit detail on how these changes could be delivered is missing, and the document “overstates” the RCN’s position when it says the college has shown a high level of support for the strategy, Fyffe said.
Staffing must be addressed with long-term workforce planning across all health and care services and professions, with all having an equal voice in decisions about how and where services are delivered, she continued.
“We also believe that it’s important that services are designed around patients, not around professionals. We know that many patients already struggle to access services. It’s good to talk about local technology-enabled care and using technology to support long-distance services. But those living in our most deprived communities or in remote and rural areas do not have access to the technology to enable this, nor the right infrastructure – such as reliable transport and broadband – to support these changes.”
The organisation will create a quality measurement framework to measure the right things, and report progress. Also enable 12 proposed quality outcome measures. These include measuring patient and staff experience, and staff attendance.
The plan includes:
· Having a single understanding of high quality – a shared focus and a basis for prioritisation
· Involving the efforts and actions of everyone, in every role, at every level
· Making the right thing the easy thing to do for staff
· Working together with patients as active partners
· Identifying what needs to change
· Recognising and valuing diversity
· Sharing our best practice
· Preventing, delaying, and reducing the impact of ill-health
· Working together across NHS Scotland, with partners in the Public Sector and Third Sector
· Ensuring Information and IT resources to support public, patients, carers and NHS Scotland
· Forming a Quality Alliance – to involve all key stakeholders and oversee implementation
See a two-page summary of the strategy here.
