The Quality Strategy puts people at the heart of everything the health service does. It establishes our commitment to ensuring that the way in which people receive healthcare is as important as how quickly they receive it. Through the implementation of the strategy, people will be encouraged to be partners in their own care and can expect to experience improvements reflecting the things they have told us that they want and need from their health services:
- Caring and compassionate staff and services;
- Clear communication and explanation about conditions and treatment;
- Effective collaboration between clinicians, patients and others;
- A clean and safe care environment;
- Continuity of care; and
- Clinical excellence.
This means:
- Putting people at the heart of NHSScotland. Those working in the health service will listen to peoples' views, gather information about their perceptions and personal experience of care and use that information to further improve care.
- Building on the values of the people working in and with NHSScotland and their commitment to providing the best possible care and advice compassionately and reliably, by making the right thing easier to do for every person, every time.
- Making measurable improvement in the aspects of quality of care that patients, their families and carers and those providing healthcare services see as really important.
For the first time, people in Scotland will have:
- the opportunity to comment systematically on their experience of healthcare and its impact on their quality of life
- an assurance that NHSScotland services will be further improved in the light of what people tell us about their experiences and outcomes
- support to engage in shared decision-making about their care
- reassurance that the whole of the NHS in Scotland is committed to patient safety and, in particular, to avoiding infection and harm, using consistent and reliable improvement methods
- personalised care plans for those people with the most complex care needs; and;
- an assurance that their NHS Board will prioritise quality.