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National Unscheduled Care Programme

National Unscheduled Care Programme

  • Engaged senior clinicians across all Health Boards through structured interviews to understand urgent care pressures and inform future service improvement.
  • Strengthened relationships with Boards through site visits and engagement in unscheduled care networks.
  • Promoted alignment of improvement efforts by connecting work across national organisations, including Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
  • Gained consensus from NHS Scotland leaders and launched a programme of work to explore the challenges around access to unscheduled care.
  • Established a national network of unscheduled care leaders, including representatives from all NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships.
    • National Strategic Delivery Groups involving 100+ stakeholders met four times in 2024/25.
  • Built a national learning system to bring together teams working on different aspects of unscheduled care for shared learning and coordinated direction.
  • Supported Boards in developing detailed improvement plans using clinically relevant data and insights.
    • The Unscheduled Care analyst team worked closely with Boards to assess impact and prioritise activities for the greatest improvement potential.
  • Conducted a national OPAT (Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy) survey in collaboration with NHS Boards to assess current service provision and  improvement opportunities.
  • Developed a national business case to support funding discussions and provide strategic advice to the Scottish Government on future development of OPAT services.
  • Co-developed the National Whole System Escalation Framework with NHS Boards to standardise indicators of pressure, escalation triggers and tipping points across Scotland.
  • Created a unified framework to support system-wide situational awareness, improve escalation responses, and enhance collaboration across acute, community and social care settings.