Healthcare Improvement Scotland incorporates several organisations: • Healthcare Environment Inspectorate • Scottish Health Technologies Group •
Community Engagement • Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network • Scottish Medicines Consortium •
Scottish Patient Safety Programme Healthcare Environment Inspectorate The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) carries out safety and cleanliness inspections of healthcare services across NHS Scotland. The assessments and inspections are to ensure that healthcare services are meeting the required standards of care, that good practice is identified and that areas for improvement are addressed.
Community engagement Community Engagement launched in April 2020, having formerly been the Scottish Health Council. It has a role to improve how the NHS in Scotland involves people in decisions about health services.
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) was formed in 1993 and develops and disseminates
evidence based clinical practice guidelines. These guidelines contain recommendations for effective practice based on current evidence. SIGN aim to improve the quality of health care for patients in Scotland. Membership includes medical specialists,
nursing,
pharmacy,
dentistry, professions allied to
medicine, patients, managers,
social services and researchers. In 2005 it became part of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. Guidelines are developed by
multidisciplinary working groups with representation from across Scotland. Each Guideline has the preliminary conclusions and draft recommendations presented it to a wider audience for feedback before publication. After publication they are available for download free of charge. More than 160 guidelines have been produced, with current guidelines available on their website.
Scottish Medicines Consortium The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has the role of providing advice to
NHS Boards and their Area Drug and Therapeutics Committees (ADTCs) about all newly licensed medicines. It seeks to supply advice within 12 weeks of a new medicine being licensed to ensure that patients who could benefit can get access to the medicine as quickly as possible. The speed of the process has allowed the SMC to be compared favourably against the performance of the
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which performs a similar role for the NHS in
England and
Wales. On one occasion, NICE was accused of incompetence by the
Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) for delaying issuing advice for England and Wales about a drug that had already been approved for use in Scotland by the SMC. New cancer drugs approved by the Consortium in 2018 are expected to increase acute drugs bills for health boards by about 9% in 2019.
Scottish Patient Safety Programme The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) was launched in January 2008 as a five-year programme. It had a primary aim to reduce mortality by 15 per cent and adverse events by 30 per cent across Scotland’s acute hospitals by the end of 2012. In June 2012 a second phase of the programme was announced, with an aim to ensure that at least 95 per cent of people receiving care do not experience harm – such as infections, falls, blood clots and pressure sores. The Pharmacy in Primary Care Collaborative is to run for two years from July 2014. "The Scottish Patient Safety Programme, marks Scotland as a leader, second to no nation on earth, in its commitment to reducing harm to patients, dramatically and continually."
Donald Berwick, president emeritus and senior fellow,
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. == See also ==