Chamber and committees

Unscheduled care is a key priority for Scottish Government and we want all hospitals across Scotland to sustainably achieve 95% of all patients attending A&E to been seen, treated and discharged or admitted with four hours. The latest weekly performance against the four hour A&E target for the w/e
29 October was 94.0%.

Since the launch of the six essential actions two years ago we have delivered significant improvements; Scotland is leading the way in the UK in terms of performance against the four hour A&E target, the number of patients waiting longer than four hours has reduced by 10% since 2012-13 compared to 180% increase in England.

Scotland’s performance in September was almost 8 percentage points better than England; more than 23 percentage points better that NI and almost 12 percentage points better than Wales (England 84.6%; Northern Ireland 69.4%, and Wales 80.6%); Scotland’s core site performance has been ahead of England for
31 consecutive months, to September 2017.

But we are not complacent. I recognise that more needs to be done to ensure a sustainable improvement in performance especially as we go in to the winter period. That is why I recently announced an additional £5 million to support winter resilience. This is over and above the £9 million, announced in May 2017, to support Unscheduled Care - total of £14 million for winter 2017, compared to £12 million the previous year.

The national performance standard for cancer is 95 per cent of patients referred urgently with a suspicion of cancer are to begin treatment within 62 days of receipt of referral.

We know further work is needed to shorten waits for diagnostics and in September 2017 we formed a Ministerial Cancer Performance Delivery Group to drive forward service redesign and improvement, backed by £1 million investment on top of
£4.85 million already allocated to boards.

Among a series of actions the group will audit processes for managing patients with a suspected cancer, implement new scrutiny and monitoring processes for health boards struggling to meet the 62 day standard, and invest in the roll-out of new technology to assist with pressures on diagnostic services.

Scottish Government is working closely with health boards through the Modern Outpatient Programme to transform services. This programme aims to reduce the demand for outpatient services and deliver care closer to patients’ homes. The Scottish Access Collaborative, which will be launched on 22 November, is based on a set of key principles and will help transform scheduled care and put services on a sustainable footing. This builds on extra investment of £50 million to cut waiting times this year.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that NHSScotland delivers high quality services and improved outcomes for patients. The Modern Outpatient Programme and Scottish Access Collaborative will deliver sustainable improvements. We have adopted a collaborative approach for Unscheduled Care and Scotland’s A&E performance has been the best in the UK for the last 30 months.

The Scottish Government agrees that a new GP contract is critical to delivering more care in the community. Scottish Government and the BMA have negotiated a new contract (published 13 November), details of the contract offer can be found at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Services/Primary-Care/GP-Contract

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-12312 on 20 November 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.asp

The welfare of NHS staff is critically important, every health board is required to have policies in place and to comply with national policies on managing health at work, which includes activity to support staff wellbeing.

Scotland has led the UK in the development of nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools. A Nation with Ambition – the Government’s Programme for Scotland 2017-18, published on 7 September 2017, published our commitment to introduce Safe Staffing legislation, enshrining our world leading workforce planning tools in law, commencing with the nursing and midwifery professions.

The Nursing 2030 Vision, launched by the Chief Nursing Officer earlier this year, sets a direction for nursing through to 2030. It recognises that when nurses are happy and valued, patient outcomes improve and services flourish. The Vision prioritises activity to support nurses’ health and wellbeing.

We will develop a medium term financial framework by February 2018 to support national, regional and local financial planning for the next 5 years.

Unlike local authorities and integration authorities, NHS Boards do not publish draft accounts. NHS Boards publish their annual accounts once the accounts have been audited and laid before the Scottish Parliament.

All NHS Boards received an unqualified audit opinion for their 2016-17 accounts.

The Chief Medical Officer’s reports, Realistic Medicine and Realising Realistic Medicine, seek to put the person receiving healthcare at the centre of decision-making and create a personalised approach to their care. Realistic medicine aims to reduce harm, waste and unwarranted variation, all while managing risks and innovating to improve.

One of the actions arising from the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan in support of this is to review the consent process for patients in Scotland with the General Medical Council and Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and make recommendations for implementation from 2018 onwards. This is a key element in supporting shared decision making and transforming the relationship between individuals and medical professionals.

In addition, our world-leading action plans on health literacy are working to build the skills, confidence, knowledge and understanding that people need to cope with the complex demands of the health and care system. This is vital to supporting people’s greater involvement in decisions about their care and treatment.