A ministerial-led annual review of NHS Dumfries and Galloway has considered the board’s performance over the past 12 months.
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Neil Gray, and chief operating officer of NHS Scotland, John Burns, attended the event which took place at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.
Mr Gray met local NHS staff and patients to get an idea of their perspectives and issues that are affecting them and said: “The review is an annual event that’s aimed at discussing how effectively the Board has delivered local services in the preceding year, and exploring key future developments and challenges.
“It’s part of the process of ensuring that we are holding Boards to account for the large sums of public money that are invested in NHS Scotland.”
Interim chairperson for NHS Dumfries and Galloway, Marsali Caig, introduced some of the key information relating to the past year and she said: “I think we’ve got some very clear reflections on what 2023/24 felt like. It was really the first full year where we saw just how much things had changed and been changed by the pandemic.
“Before then we’d started to face challenges with service sustainability, and 23/24 felt like it was the start of a year to transform while keeping up with demand. ‘Running to keep up’, if you like. Of course, at the end of 2023/24 and into this financial year we had the cyber attack, and I think it’s fair to say that this had a huge impact on our ability to design and deliver change and transformation in the way that we want to and aspire to.
“During 23/24, and with that pandemic context in mind, we set about working together to develop our thinking on our longer term ambitions and immediate priorities.”
She noted a recognition of a pressing need to ‘get on the front foot’ with preventative upstream services, and for that to be undertaken in partnership.
Ms Caig highlighted considerable work around the safe and efficient redesign of services, noting the strategic direction from Dumfries and Galloway Integration Joint Board in areas such as maternity services in Wigtownshire, and through the Right Care, Right Place programme.
She said: “We continue to work with Galloway Community Hospital Action Group to optimise the critical role that that hospital plays in terms of delivering services to Wigtownshire. As I’m sure you’re also aware, access to dentistry remains a critical challenge to us as a Board, and we’re working with the chief dental officer and Scottish Government colleagues to discuss how we might improve things.”
“General practice will also be a theme over the next year; we do have an issue with GP recruitment and we do hope to do some work on sustainability or primary care services.”
Looking towards the board’s performance on the subject of waiting lists, Ms Caig added: “I think it’s fair to say that every day spent on a wating list feels too long. Cabinet Secretary, I’m delighted to say that, despite our challenges, we are one of your highest performing Boards in Scotland in a number of areas, and this is particularly evident in relation to the 31/62 day cancer referral targets – arguably one of the most worrying times for our patients and their families.
“We’re most recently achieving 100 per cent for both of these, and are continuing to work with colleagues in NHS Lothian for the small number of individuals have had to wait too long for neurological and colorectal cancer access.”
Ms Caig then spoke to data focused on treatment time guarantees, new outpatient appointments, diagnostic scopes, diagnostic imaging, mental health services, hospital flow.
She said: “In terms of key performance challenges, she said: “Money is obviously a huge and ongoing issue for us, and we broke even in 23/24 with the help of brokerage money from Scottish Government of £22 million.
“This year the scope of financial recovery is wider and deeper than ever before, and we’re delivering more savings than ever before.
“It’s also important to say that staff are our biggest asset, and we put in place support for staff over the past year, access to psychological therapies, and we’re also working with Dumfries and Galloway Citizen’s Advice Service, a local charity, to enable staff to have direct access to support with cost of living difficulties which we know has created concern for some of our staff.”
She also noted that 15 international staff had been recruited across a range of specialities, and spoke of ‘fantastic work’ with local schools, ‘building that pipeline of future staff for us’.
Setting out key plans, Ms Caig noted planned improvements around dementia diagnosis and follow-up support, improving theatre utilisation, and for cancer care improving approaches to screening, pre-habilitation, rapid cancer diagnostic service, psychological support and MacMillan Improving the Cancer Journey.
Improvement is also planned around mental health, CAMHS and in unscheduled care – launching Discharge to Assess, embedding Discharge without Delay, introducing flexible beds for intermediate care, establishing pathways to support Call Before You Convey and enhancing the impact of the Frailty Team.
After watching some videos focused on areas of work, the meeting was then opened to questions either submitted from advance or from those present.
Bringing the Annual Review to a close, Mr Gray said a summary of the key points will be published on the board’s website.
A video of the NHS Dumfries and Galloway Annual Review can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/nPV-bxJiGok.