Meeting of the Parliament 02 March 2017
There has been an 18 per cent reduction in stillbirths. A lot of that reduction is due to the patient safety programme working with front-line professionals to change some of the practices. However, there is more work to be done. That is why we have just had the review of maternity and neonatal services, which makes a number of recommendations that we will implement to make further improvements. We should recognise that that has been a significant improvement, but there is more work to be done.
I turn briefly to the medicines programme, which aims to bring together improvement activity related to medicines from acute care, primary care, the maternity and children’s service, and mental health. That provides a unique opportunity to consider the safer use of medicines from a whole-system approach, focusing on the patient as they move between care settings and home. The first key area of focus for the programme is medicine reconciliation, which focuses on reducing harm from medicines across transitions of care by ensuring that medication is accurately checked and prescribed.
Finally, I am delighted to report that the hospital standardised mortality ratio, which provides details of unexpected hospital deaths, continues to decrease. As that was the primary aim of the programme, the continued reduction in those figures is a success that I am proud to celebrate. The latest available hospital standardised mortality ratio figure, published last month, indicates that it has reduced nationally by 8.6 per cent since 2014, and it is well on track to reduce further to 10 per cent by December 2018.
Similarly, national data published at the end of 2016 indicates that there has been a 24 per cent reduction in surgical mortality, a 21 per cent reduction in sepsis mortality, an 18 per cent reduction in stillbirths, as I mentioned earlier, a 93 per cent reduction in healthcare associated infections and a 78 per cent reduction in ventilator associated pneumonia rates.
I recognise the very significant challenges that face our health and social care system, in terms of our ageing population and the increasing numbers of people living with multiple and complex conditions. For that reason, we need to maintain momentum and continue to improve quality of care. We must apply our successful improvement approaches to allow us to continue to deliver today, and into the future, better outcomes for the Scottish people.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises that the work of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, which is the first programme of its kind to be implemented on a national basis, is world leading and represents the international benchmark for safe care; notes the efforts of the many staff throughout the NHS in a variety of care settings all over the country to ensure that the people of Scotland can undergo safe and effective treatment; acknowledges the huge challenges that face the NHS in meeting the demands of an ageing population and those of integrating health and social care services, and recognises the role that innovative improvement approaches can play in helping to meet those challenges.