Theme | Recommendation | Lead responsibility | Supported by | Target date |
|---|
1. Healthcare science visibility and engagement | 1.1 Each NHS Board should support the establishment of a local Healthcare Science Area Forum to improve service visibility and cohesion, ensure inclusion in board-level decision making that impacts on HCS demand, and to develop HCS services to meet the needs of local users. | NHS Boards | | Jan 2008 |
| 1.2 Each NHS Board should consider including specific responsibility for HCS services in the remit of an existing Board member and explore connections between the Board member and the HCS Area Forum. | NHS Boards | | Jan 2008 |
2. Involvement, engagement with users of HCS services and communication | 2.1 NHS Boards should use their HCS Area Forum to encourage and support healthcare science services to engage with and educate their key referrers on appropriate use of HCS services. | HCS Area Forums | Area Clinical Advisory Committee | 2008-ongoing |
3. The shift toward community-centred health care | 3.1 NHS Boards should use the facility of their HCS Area Forum to encourage robust systems of quality assurance for point-of care testing in hospital and community settings, with guidance from biomedical and clinical scientists. | HCS Area Forums | Professional leads | 2008-ongoing |
| 3.2 NHS Boards should use the facility of their HCS Area Forum to encourage physiological measurement quality assurance in hospital and community settings, with support from clinical physiologists. | HCS Area Forums | Professional leads | 2008-ongoing |
| 3.3 NHS Boards should use their HCS Area Forum to encourage and support medical and enablement equipment-based services to explore how existing skills, approaches to quality management, risk and standardisation can be utilised to support the work of community health care services and community equipment users/providers. | HCS Area Forums | Professional leads | 2008-ongoing |
4. Leadership capacity within healthcare science | 4.1 Healthcare scientist leads, heads of service and aspiring HCS leaders should be supported to develop leadership skills though local and national leadership development opportunities. | HCS Heads of Service | HCS Area Forum
NES | 2008-ongoing |
| 4.2 The Chief Health Professions Officer will work in partnership with NES and other healthcare science stakeholders to explore how existing opportunities to develop NHS strategic leadership skills can include both senior healthcare scientists and those undertaking higher specialist training. | CHPO
NES | SFHCS
HCS Area Forums | 2008-09 |
5. Improvement, role development and diagnostic waits | 5.1 NHS Boards should ensure that healthcare science services have access to local training opportunities to support service redesign and modernisation initiatives. | NHS Boards | HCS Area Forums | 2008-09 |
| 5.2 HCS Area Forums should identify local priorities for healthcare science service improvement exercises in the light of national programmes and targets. | HCS Area Forums | HCS Heads of Service | 2008-09 |
| 5.3 The Chief Health Professions Officer should work in partnership with the Diagnostics Collaborative, NES and NHSQIS to explore opportunities for service improvement, sharing of learning and dissemination of good practice throughout NHSScotland. | CHPO | Diagnostics Collaborative
NES
NHSQIS | 2008-ongoing |
6. New technology: service impact and adoption strategies | 6.1 The Chief Health Professions Officer should open a dialogue with relevant stakeholders to explore the need for horizon scanning for new technology in healthcare science. | CHPO | SFHCS
HCS Area Forums
Professional bodies
NHSQIS
NSS | 2008-ongoing |
7. Encouraging healthcare science networks | 7.1 HCS area forums should develop local implementation plans to ensure effective cross-discipline working and service provision and sustainable services. | HCS Area Forums | Service users, non- HCS colleagues.
HCS Heads of service | 2008-ongoing |
| 7.2 The Chief Health Professions Officer, in partnership with NHSQIS, should explore the potential for a HCS Practice Development work stream. | CHPO | NHSQIS | 2008-ongoing |
| 7.3 NHS Education for Scotland should explore how healthcare scientists can be supported to make better use of e-library resources. | NES | CHPO
SFHCS | 2008-09 |
8. Education and training of healthcare scientists. | 8.1 The Chief Health Professions Officer and NES will explore the potential for a distinct work stream at NES focusing on the education and training needs of the healthcare science staff group, with early prioritisation of clinical physiology and clinical technology. | CHPO | SFHCS
Professional bodies
NES | 2008 |
| 8.2 The Chief Health Professions Officer, in partnership with NHS Boards and NHS Education for Scotland, should consider alternative models of utilising existing education and training resources for those aspects of healthcare science not nationally catered for, and explore pooling into a national programme. | NES | SFHCS
NHS Boards | 2008-09 |
| 8.3 NES will explore opportunities for joint and common learning approaches within the HCS staff group and with other health professions. | CHPO | NES
SFHCS
Education providers | 2008-09 |
| 8.4 The Chief Health Professions Officer should initiate discussions involving NES, education providers and SFHCS regarding work-based, distance learning and other education models for healthcare science. | CHPO
NES | SGHD Regulation
Unit
NES | 2008-ongoing |
| 8.5 The Chief Health Professions Officer and NES will maintain a regular dialogue with the Health Professions Council that includes ensuring training programmes for healthcare scientists in Scotland reflect the UK regulatory context. | CHPO | NES | 2008-ongoing |
9. Healthcare scientist associate practitioners and support workers | 9.1 NES should explore how work currently being undertaken on meeting the education and support needs of healthcare support workers can be linked to support worker and assistant practitioners in HCS in relation to the NHSScotland Career Framework. | NES | CHPO
NHS Boards | 2008-ongoing |
10. Healthcare scientists working in isolated situations | 10.1 The Chief Health Professions Officer should initiate discussions involving NES, workforce planners, the SFHCS and other stakeholders to explore the scope and need for generalist healthcare scientist practitioners within each HCS stream to meet the needs of rural, night-time and emergency care services. | CHPO | NES
SFHCS
Remote and rural project
HCS leads
Workforce planners | 2008-09 |
| 10.2 The Chief Health Professions Officer should initiate discussions with relevant stakeholders to identify a national consensus on the composition of core HCS services in remote and rural settings. | CHPO | NES
SFHCS
Remote and rural project
HCS leads
Workforce planners | 2008-09 |
11. Continuing Professional Development | 11. 1 Healthcare science heads of department should, through engagement with stakeholders, work towards the establishment of designated CPD time for all staff, but particularly those registered with the Health Professions Council or aspirant professions on voluntary registers. | HCS heads | NHS Boards | 2008-ongoing |
12. Research Development & Innovation | 12.1 The Chief Health Professions Office will open a dialogue with relevant stakeholders to assess the current research and development activity undertaken by NHSScotland's healthcare scientists in the context of current and emerging priorities for NHSScotland and with a view to exploring healthcare science research, development and innovation. | CHPO | HCS leads
SFHCS | 2008-ongoing |