Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Shona Robison MSP visited NHS24 yesterday to see firsthand how Scotland’s national unscheduled care and health information service launch the first phase of its technology upgrade.
Ahead of NHS 24’s Annual Review, today (7th November 2016), the Minister was given a demonstration of the range of services and information that the organisation provides to support patients across Scotland. This included six scheduled care services which in September transferred on to a new telephony platform.
Ms Robison was also updated on the roll-out of the new technology system and the improvements it will bring to patient care when it is fully implemented during 2017. NHS 24 staff who deliver frontline services described their experiences of using the new telephony, how they handle calls, and the way care is delivered to patients.
The Minister was also shown a range of information which will be available on the updated national health resource NHS inform website when it is relaunched later this month. This included a brand new self help guide which has been redesigned in line with many of the common health issues with which people contact our 111 service. These self help guides have been created to give people high quality, trusted information about how to look after themselves and their families, particularly over the winter months ahead.
Ms Robison said: “I would like to thank all of NHS 24’s staff for their hard work over the past year to help people get the right care from the right person at the right time. Clearly there have been some challenges around the introduction of the new telephony platform. However, real progress has been made and I was pleased to be able to see the system first hand today. I was reassured to hear that all aspects of the system are operating safely, and that every effort is being made to ensure staff will be able to confidently handle the system before it is fully introduced. NHS 24 is taking a phased approach to introducing the new system and I believe this is the best way forward for patients.”
The demonstrations took place ahead of a series of meetings looking at NHS 24’s performance over the 2015-16 year, including a public session. The event was also webcast to staff across the service’s main centres around Scotland.
During the review, the Minister heard that NHS 24 took 1.5 million calls during the review year to the 111 service, in addition to 62,000 calls to the Scottish Emergency Dental Service. There were more than 2 million online and telephone contacts to the Health Information Services and 80,000 calls to the mental health support service Breathing Space.
NHS 24’s Chair Esther Roberton said: “We welcomed this opportunity to update the Cabinet Secretary on NHS 24’s new technology system and to give her the opportunity to hear first hand from staff how they have responded positively to this development. In spite of challenges which the organisation has faced over the past 12 months, NHS 24 has made progress and the delivery of this first phase of our system is a very positive step forward.
“The Annual Review has demonstrated that NHS 24 continues to deliver high quality, safe and effective services to patients and allows our organisation to demonstrate where we are exceeding targets to support patient care across NHSScotland. We have also updated the Minister on our improvement plan for NHS 24 and have shared our developing corporate strategy with the Minister and her team. We are pleased to report we are making progress and the Annual Review provides an important opportunity to review performance and to identify key areas for further work and development.”
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