Audit report on health service in Scotland

Citation

(2002), "Audit report on health service in Scotland", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2002.06215aab.006

Audit report on health service in Scotland

Audit report on health service in Scotland

According to a new report, Mind the Gap by Audit Scotland, poor information gathering may be preventing outpatients getting a better deal from the health service in Scotland. The report highlights inadequacies in the type and quality of data recorded, both locally and nationally.

Robert Black, Auditor General for Scotland, said:

If health service managers are not getting the information they need to compare their own performance with best practice then it is more difficult to’improve patient services … For example, continuity of care is important for efficient and effective treatment of patients, yet no national data is available on key aspects, such as the availability or quality of previous case notes and test results to clinicians. In addition, data on what treatments are being used or their outcome is patchy and not always reliable.

The report also calls for a comprehensive review of the outpatients system. Figures for the three years up to December 2000 show that the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks for an outpatient appointment had risen from 8 per cent of referrals in 1998 to 15 per cent in December 2000. Average waiting times showed a gradual increase over the same period, rising to 47 days in December 2000. The percentage of patients seen within the health board specified guaranteed times decreased from 78 per cent (December 1998) to 73 per cent (December 2000).

Non-attendance at clinics is a widespread problem and costs the NHS in Scotland around £10 million a year. Non-attendance is highest amongst patients from the most deprived areas.

The report highlights three key issues:

1. 1.

   There is a lack of robust data and information on which to plan and manage outpatient services.

2. 2.

   There are some worrying patterns in the data that are available. For example there are doubts about whether the existing costing data are sufficiently robust to support benchmarking and more work needs to be done to ensure that variations do not simply reflect variations in accounting practices.

3. 3.

   In order to improve outpatient services in line with the health plan (Our National Health: A Plan for Action a Plan for Change, Scottish Executive Health Department 2000), a review of the system is required.

Audit Scotland is producing a self assessment package designed to help health service managers review their systems for managing outpatient services.

Further information: the full report, Mind the Gap, is available on the Audit Scotland web site at http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/