Healthcare Improvement Scotland has today published a report following a review of emergency departments at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow Royal Infirmary and the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
The emergency departments in NHSGGC, like those across Scotland, continue to be under pressure.
While we aim to provide high quality care for our patients, delays in the flow through and out of hospitals often result in patients waiting too long in emergency departments.
Under these pressures, the working environment can also be difficult for our staff.
We have received the report from Healthcare Improvement Scotland which raises these issues and outlines a range of recommendations to improve both the local NHS GGC system and indeed A&E services across Scotland.
We take the report, and most importantly the views of our patients and staff, very seriously and want to assure our patients and staff of our commitment to improve.
In the two months since NHSGGC Chief Executive Professor Gardner joined the organisation, she has been out meeting staff and hearing about our successes and challenges. Along with Medical Director, Dr Scott Davidson and Nurse Director Professor Angela Wallace, Professor Gardner has pledged to listen to staff and to work collaboratively and respectfully to tackle the challenges we face and to build trust between staff of all levels.
In addition, she has launched ambitious plans for whole system transformation at scale and pace to address the pressures in our hospitals, create capacity to treat more patients who are waiting for treatment and to support more people to be treated from the comfort of their own home.
Ensuring that our staff feel valued and respected is essential for our future success and this will sit at the heart of our work.
Whilst this is being progressed, there may be further short-term measures that can be introduced to improve the patients and staff experience within our emergency departments. The Chief Executive, along with colleagues, will meet staff early next week to begin a supportive dialogue on this.
We will build the recommendations from the HIS ED review into these discussions.