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Modernising Patient Pathways Work Plan

To support front line clinical teams to develop sustainable improvements in service delivery, primarily in planned care with redesigning models of care, sharing best practice, and work to balance capacity with demand for services.

Board engagement and clinical leadership

  • Use SDGs to continue to develop and maintain robust engagement with Boards.
  • Utilise Heatmaps to ensure shared prioritisation and Board support including developing an initial Heatmap that sets out a shared view of the 2025/26 ambitions, and ongoing engagement with Board Leadership and operational teams.
  • Ongoing development of Clinical Leadership Model for Speciality Delivery Groups with national clinical leads providing subject matter expertise, ensuring focus on high impact opportunities.

Strategic Priorities: Stakeholder engagement and collaboration; Improving quality and efficiency 

Development and Dissemination of National Pathway and Resources

  • Scope, develop and publish new national pathways and/or resources across a range of clinical specialties.Ensure active dissemination, implementation and monitoring of published pathways.
  • Use Heatmap process to assess national implementation of pathways.
  • Develop resources to support active dissemination, such as videos, webinars, publications, and case studies.
  • Work with Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and the Right Decision Service (RDS) and ensure active dissemination of pathways, including through national and local meetings and the development of a RDS webinar series.
  • Via SDGs, lead local discussions and drive implementation of pathways.
  • Develop a new cancer prehabilitation pathway. This will include publication, active
    dissemination and implementation of the pathway, and a review of digital innovations to support the pathway.
  • Develop the national digital platform infrastructure required to enable the structured collection and review of patient reported outcome measures (PROMS).
  • Support Target Operating Model commissions from the Scottish Government through the relevant SDGs.

Strategic Priorities: Improving quality and efficiency; promoting and implementing sustainable solutions.

Demonstrating impact through Measurement and analysis

  • Further develop methodology to capture adoption and impact of CfSD clinical pathways
    through SDGs and the Heatmap.
  • Continue development of recording and reporting of opt-in pathways at both local and
    national level.
  • Further develop and promote SDG Waiting Times Dashboard to support SDG workplans.
  • Work in partnership with National Services Scotland (NSS) Digital to scope and develop national data dashboards, including hosting on national platforms (such as SEER2), to facilitate ongoing programmes.

Strategic Priority: Data and evidence

Enabling the Embedding of Sustainable Waiting List Management Approaches

  • Continue focus on measuring, promoting and maximising Active Clinical Referral Triage
    (ACRT) and Patient Initiated Review (PIR) via the Speciality Delivery Groups (SDGs).
  • Develop improvement resources to support adoption of Patient Focused Booking to drive
    efficiencies within Outpatients, including improved clinic utilisation and reduction in did-not-attend (DNA) rate.
  • Promote optimal waiting list management approaches including the application of Booking in Turn to support a reduction in long waits.
  • Support development and implementation of national Productivity and Efficiency Plan. This will include developing an Outpatient Operational Improvement Group with nominated Board representation to support Area 1 (Outpatient Improvement) of the plan.

Strategic Priority: Promoting and implementing sustainable solutions

Supporting Sustainable Theatre Redesign and Improvement

  • Finalise and publish the National Framework for Perioperative Principles developed by Perioperative Delivery Group (PDG) which will support creating optimal conditions for adoption of Digital Scheduling.
  • Develop the National Theatre Information Group (NTIG) to establish key metrics, improve NTIG data quality and further enhance and develop existing and new analytical outputs.
  • The NTIG group will also support Area 2 (Surgery and High Volume Low Complexity Pathways) of the national Productivity and Efficiency Plan.
  • Work with the Perioperative Delivery Group (PDG) to ensure NTIG data is used to support a national focus on theatre productivity and efficiency.
  • Through collaboration between the PDG and NTIG, use the newly published Framework for Perioperative Principles to realise improvements in productivity, efficiency and outcomes.
  • Continue work to promote hi-flow cataract surgery.
  • Ensure a national approach to the use of theatre productivity and efficiency metrics.

Strategic Priority: Promoting and implementing sustainable solutions

Sustainable Workforce Redesign

  • Improve the use of team service planning and non-medical roles.
  • Ensure that SDGs promote team service planning approaches, including flexible workforce approaches and use of DCAQ (Demand Capacity Activity Queue).
  • Ensure that SDGs collaborate with National Education for Scotland (NES) and NHS Scotland Academy to maximise use of non-medical roles and innovative approaches to workforce.

Strategic Priority: Supporting Workforce

Supporting Innovation

  • Support the ANIA pathway and ensure SDGs help facilitate the spread of innovation. This will include working with the Innovation Team to support the digital dermatology project and to identify new approaches to care.
  • Work with the Green Theatres Team to identify opportunities for green pathways.
  • Complete the evaluation of the Sunrise (Respiratory) innovation in partnership with relevant partners.

Strategic Priority: Driving Health Technology and Innovation