15 Nov 2017
Former Chief Medical Officer Sir Harry Burns has carried out an independent national review into targets and indicators for health and social care.
The review states that the present system of targets and indicators is fragmented and many of the indicators do not lend themselves to effective improvement interventions.
It has been recommended that health and social care services move to a system of indicators and targets which allow improvements across the whole system of care to be tracked.
Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health, Miles Briggs said:
“This report accurately identifies that the current system of targets has not improved health outcomes enough.
“This report is welcome and, I know from speaking with many frontline NHS staff, we clearly need to change the target culture in our NHS.
“These recommendations should give all our medical professionals the time and confidence to deliver the world class health care we all want to see.
“Scottish Conservatives have long advocated a shift in our health services to outcomes based approach and I hope Sir Harry Burns’ Report will be fully implemented by Scottish Ministers.
“However, it will be entirely unacceptable for SNP Ministers simply to use Sir Harry Burns Report as cover to rip up the health targets which they have failed to meet over the last decade while they have been in charge of the NHS in Scotland.”
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