Uniquely placed to help – Robbie Pearson, Chief Executive, Healthcare Improvement Scotland

As a Chief Executive this is not something that is always easy to admit but… to the outside world, I am aware organisations like Healthcare Improvement Scotland can sometimes be challenging to understand.

We do not directly deliver care, we are not usually visible on the front line of health and social care services and we are not always in the public eye.

Nonetheless every day, in a sometimes less than public way, we make a difference to the care that is delivered.

We hope to improve understanding of how we can, and do, help. So we have gathered together a series of blog articles to illustrate some of the ways in which our support translates into improvements for those of us who use services.

The articles reflect the breadth of issues we can help with. From helping individuals with long term conditions be more in control of their health and wellbeing to developing new clinical guidelines – and from improving the safety and reliability of health and social care services to an inspection programme which leads to improvements in the care people receive.

We also hope to illustrate the constant in all our work – and that is the need to continue to put those who use, and those who deliver, services at the centre of everything we do.

…many parts, one purpose – making care better…

Demand on services is rising, and pressure is growing in many parts of the health and social care system and those providing health and social care services need help. So support to enable them to change and make improvements is incredibly important, as no change in how we currently provide health and social care is simply not an option.

At Healthcare Improvement Scotland we feel we are uniquely placed to help. We work at all levels in the system – national, regional, local and individual – to help improve the quality of care. There is no one solution that fits all providers and services, so we need, and have, a range of ‘tools in the box’ to support.

In fact, we often describe our organisation as having ‘many parts, one purpose – making care better.’ And when you look at the ‘many parts’ it is a formidable armoury. It includes inspections and reviews, advice on medicines and technologies, standards and guidelines on how care is delivered, a variety of programmes which enable providers to improve, a world renowned patient safety programme, using evidence and data on services from across the country and a dedicated team to ensure the public voice is heard in health and social care services. It is a fantastic suite of support to have under one roof. Something not many countries have.

We will be publishing the articles on this blog site over the course of the next few months. I hope you enjoy them and, as always, I welcome your feedback or comments on any of the articles.

Robbie Pearson is Chief Executive at Healthcare Improvement Scotland.