Question reference: S5W-24850
- Asked by: Alison Harris, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 22 August 2019
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Current status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 17 September 2019
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to NHS Forth Valley meeting just two of its eight national performance targets, and missing four of them by more than 10%, in 2018-19.
Answer
Officials are working closely with all NHS Boards including NHS Forth Valley to ensure that key improvements are made against each of the 8 key performance indicators.
In terms of A&E we continue to support NHS Forth Valley through the National Unscheduled Care programme to implement sustainable solutions to ensure delivery of the four hour A&E target. Officials met with the Chief Executive recently to agree key areas of focus over the coming weeks, including improving Patient Pathways for minors flow to putting in place a more robust Escalation and Responsive operational management process and reviewing staff rotas and job plans to maximise capacity during periods of high demand.
In October 2018 the Waiting Times improvement Plan was launched to assist in the reduction of waiting times to ensure future delivery of waiting time standards and guarantee for patients across Scotland by the Spring of 2021. To support improvement since October 2018 we have invested almost £7 million in Forth Valley to support specialties such as ENT, Trauma and Orthopaedics, General Surgery as well as providing additional funding to NHS Forth Valley in 2018-19 to support the recovery of cancer waiting times performance. This money was directed to providing additional diagnostic capacity (MRI and CT), colorectal theatre capacity, additional Nurse Endoscopist sessions and a review of cancer pathways.
NHS Forth Valley has also worked with the Mental Health Access Improvement Support Team (MHAIST) to develop a focused improvement plan which identifies ways to maximise the effectiveness of existing capacity and where additional staffing capacity is required. This plan is now being implemented and the expectation is that FV will perform at or above the Standard in the next quarter as set out in their Annual Operational Plan.