The person leading the organisation set up by the Scottish government to drive the re-mobilisation, recovery and redesign of NHS Scotland following the pandemic says she is confident Scotland can introduce innovation faster to help build a better health and care landscape for the future.

In an interview for healthandcare.scot published today, Jann Gardner says the national Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) can become internationally recognised for health and care transformation – with the ambition of raising Scotland’s profile as ‘a forward thinking innovator’.

Ahead of the election, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon referred to the Centre as being “crucial to our efforts” to remobilise the NHS for the future, saying:

“… we know we cannot simply return to the way things worked before Covid.

“We must reform and adapt how the NHS provides care – principally for the benefit of patients, but also to better reflect and take advantage of new technology and modern ways of working.”

The Scottish government is to publish a recovery plan setting out how it will achieve a ten percent increase in overall NHS activity, compared to pre-pandemic levels, by the end of the summer – though some doctors’ organisations have suggested this is unrealistic.

Ms Gardner, who is Chief Executive of the NHS Golden Jubilee and ‘accountable officer’ for CfSD, says the Centre is about bringing people together to co-produce the national programmes, new techniques, and technology that will deliver faster, more efficient patient pathways:

“By working in collaboration with NHS boards, health and social care partners, third sector, patients, academia and industry, CfSD aims to implement best practice through a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach to support the rapid rollout of new techniques, innovation, and safe, fast and efficient care pathways for Scotland’s patients.”

The creation of the CfSD, was announced by ministers late last year and recruited its leaders, including former Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood as its National Clinical Director, in the first months of this year.

It will work directly for the Scottish government which will commission an annual work plan and put in place arrangements to monitor its delivery.

The Centre takes over responsibility for the national unscheduled and planned care programmes, cancer performance and early diagnosis programmes, the Scottish Access Collaborative and Modernising Patient Pathways programmes.

In the interview for healthandcare.scot, Ms Gardner explains about how patient pathways are to be identified for review and possible remapping, and that, although boards and health and social care partnerships will be expected to implement the changes, CfSD will support delivery not penalise those that do not change fast enough:

“CfSD has an ethos of collaboration to solve challenging problems, make positive change, and build on the significant progress that has already been made through redesign and transformation.

“Boards will be supported to embed new pathways in a variety of ways depending on local need – this could be providing improvement expertise at a local level or funding clinical or administrative support to manage the transition.

“A bespoke support service is also being developed to support local initiatives and address challenges specific to Health Boards that are not part of national programmes. It is hoped this could generate scalable options for other Health Boards experiencing similar challenges.”

Ms Gardner adds:

“The Centre will work with NHS Boards to optimise the use of current programmes, tools and pathways as well as offering customised support to ensure our whole population, regardless of demographic or location, is supported to live well and access services when they need them.”

 

Read the full text of the interview: Insight: Mapping pathways to transform the NHS

 

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