Foreword
NHSScotland has made considerable progress in improving efficiency and productivity across Health Services as a result of a sustained programme of improvement work tackling waiting times, cancer services, emergency care, long term conditions and mental health services.
In Scotland, and indeed worldwide, there is a major issue facing healthcare: how do we continuously improve the quality of care whilst simultaneously containing or reducing costs. The Efficiency and Productivity Delivery Framework is a key component of our response to this challenge, and must be considered as part of our overall strategy on quality. Too often in the past, cost and quality have been seen as competing priorities. Developing an Efficiency and Productivity Delivery Framework that is clearly embedded within an overall integrated quality framework will enable NHSScotland to drive forward consistent and unified goals for quality improvement and lower cost.
The Efficiency and Productivity Delivery Framework aims to support NHSScotland as part of an explicit ongoing commitment to evidence based clinical practice by improving consistency of care, reducing variation and creating the right culture and organisational conditions required to support transformational change. This Efficiency and Productivity Delivery Framework sets out the first phase of the programme of work to achieve tangible efficiency and productivity gains. The plan highlights a range of opportunities evidenced by information, through analysis and benchmarking approaches, and is closely aligned with NHSScotland's key improvement targets.
I commend this delivery framework to you and expect NHS Boards to now put in place the requisite planning to achieve the aims and objectives of this programme.
KEVIN WOODS