The HCSSA seeks to enable safe high quality care and improved outcomes for service users by ensuring appropriate and effective levels of staffing for NHS Scotland and Care Service Providers. The Act came into enactment on 01 April 2024 and applies across healthcare and those who provide Clinical Advice and Care Services.
In the video below, staff from some of our healthcare disciplines talk briefly about what the Act means for them and their colleagues. Clinical and Care Staff should review and understand the guiding principles and consider the potential impact, which the video helps to outline. You can also complete the Informed Learning resource on Turas here.
You can contact us at ggc.healthcare.staffing@nhs.scot
NHSGGC system wide HCSSA programme, chaired by Professor Angela Wallace, Executive Nurse Director and co-chaired by senior HSCP and Medical representatives has now concluded. The programme was remobilised in summer 2023 and had representatives from all professions that the Act covers as well as leaders from relevant areas of service. We have now moved into a Transitional Phase of Oversight as we ensure all processes and activities required for compliance are fully embedded and assured.
Health & Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019
The Health & Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 was enacted in April 2024. It aims to provide a statutory basis for the provision of appropriate staffing in Health and Social Care services to support the delivery of safe and effective high-quality care. This will be achieved by having the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time to improve outcomes for people using our services and improve staff wellbeing.
The Act does not prescribe health care staffing levels or planning and instead supports the development of suitable approaches in various health and social care settings.
We are currently in the ‘implementation phase’ of the programme, in this the enactment year, and will continue to end of March 2025. A link to the Act can be found here: Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019: overview – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
The implementation of the Act will:
- Assure that staffing is sufficient to support the delivery of high-quality care
- Support a culture of honesty and transparency that engages health and social care staff in the relevant process and ensures they are informed regarding healthcare staffing decisions
- Support further improvements to enhance and strengthen current arrangements in healthcare staffing planning and employment practices
- Risk escalation and mitigation processes to enable health and social care staff to be heard at all levels to inform evidence-based healthcare staffing decision-making
- Ensure professional clinical advice is available when healthcare staffing risks are highlighted
What is the role of NHSGGC in the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019?
NHSGGC must:
- Have regard for the guiding principles:
- That the main purposes of staffing for health and care services are to provide safe and high-quality services and to ensure the best health or care outcomes for service users.
- That staffing for health and care services is to be arranged while:
- Improving standards and outcomes for service users;
- Taking account of the needs, abilities, characteristics, and circumstances of different service users;
- Respecting the dignity and rights of service users;
- Taking account of the views of staff and service users;
- Ensuring the wellbeing of staff;
- Being open with staff and service users about decisions on staffing;
- Allocating Staff efficiently and effectively;
- Promoting multi-disciplinary services as appropriate.
Further to this patient-facing clinical services are required to comply with :
- Duty to ensure appropriate staffing (overarching duty)
- Duty to ensure appropriate staffing –agency workers-
- Duty to have real-time staffing assessment in place
- Duty to have risk escalation in place
- Duty to have arrangements to address severe and recurrent risks
- Duty to seek clinical advice on staffing
- Duty to ensure appropriate staffing –number of Healthcare Professionals etc.)
- Duty to ensure adequate time given to clinical leaders
- Duty to ensure appropriate staffing – staff training
- Duty to follow the Common Staffing Method
NHS Scotland Boards and delivery partners must report annually to Scottish Ministers on how they have met the requirements in the legislation and support Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and the Care Inspectorate (CI), as required.
NHSGGC Delivery of HCSSA
NHSGGC agreed to be a ‘test board’ as part of Scottish Governments development of the legislation and its guidance, amongst other Health Boards. From September 2023, the Programmes focus was to review the Acts draft duties and guiding principles using SWOT analysis techniques, in multi-disciplinary teams across the Health Board and our 6 HSCP delivery partners. This has been completed for the Acts guiding principles and the majority of the Duties within the Act. The multi-professional approach and preparation has enabled the Board to establish an Evidence Bank, for where we have compliance with the Act and highlight key activities and actions to be delivered to improve the level of compliance.
As such, the Act will be implemented maintaining the multi-disciplinary planning approach, taking the outputs from the testing of the duties, that have developed from recommendations into driver diagrams to plan out the improvement activities required for compliance. These have translated into a list of actions, prioritised by assurance and risk rating, and are or being assigned to a lead or short life working group.
We are working hard to deliver this in a way that impacts as little as possible on “business as usual” work of our busy clinical colleagues, splitting the duties into separate working groups and meeting regularly to ensure multi professional input are considered and solutions reached by consensus, which has been the core approach to this programme.
We are working cross-organisationally with our colleagues in other NHS Scotland boards to ensure we deliver the Act consistently across Scotland and build a supportive network of subject matter experts. We are committed to understanding the experiences of others and providing learning to everyone involved.
Education and Training for Staff – The Knowledge and Skills Framework
All staff must review and understand the principles of the legislation and consider the impact on their responsibilities to:
- People who use the service
- Colleagues
- NHSGGC
- If appropriate to their profession
They must also take responsibility to escalate to the senior person on shift any immediate concerns about healthcare staffing.
As a clinical leader, you are responsible for supporting teams in their knowledge and understanding of health and care staffing which is inclusive of open and transparent discussions about health and care staffing decisions.
Please refer to ALL Quick Guides relating to the Act.
Please complete:
Learning resources : Informed level | Turas | Learn (nhs.scot)
Learning resources : Skilled level | Turas | Learn (nhs.scot)
For certain identified roles, it is also recommended to complete the expert level:
Learning resources : Expert level / Turas / Learn (nhs.scot)
.
Frequently Asked Questions – Please click on the relevant profession
HCSSA Governance
Tranistional Oversight Board
The Transitional Oversight Board aims to meet Quarterly and has replaced the Programme Board
The Programme has now completed and we are moving into Transitional Oversight, the governance and meeting structures are under review and will be available here in June, after approval.
Resources and Guidance
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) Resources
Scottish Government (SG) have published statutory guidance to accompany the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) in collaboration with SG have developed a series of Quick Guides to compliment the statutory guidance relating to NHS services.
The aim of these quick guides is to:
- Provide a quick and easy resource for staff to access
- Provide a simple explanation of parts of the legislation
- Provide practical examples and actions for boards and services
- You can also access the Health and Care Staffing Act Sway presentation which gives a concise overview of all parts of the Act
- Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)
Care Inspectorate (CI) Resources
- Care Inspectorate – HCSSA Web Pages
- Care Inspectorate – HCSSA Short Guide
Scottish Government (SG) Resources
NHSGGC HCSSA Procedures
These are NHSGGC Procedures developed by a multi professional team for implementation to support compliance with the Act
- NHSGGC Real Time Staffing and Risk Escalation Standard Operating Procedure
- NHSGGC Time to Lead Standard Operating Procedure
- NHSGGC Common Staffing Method Standard Operating Procedure
- NHSGGC Nursing and Midwifery Safe to Start In-Patient Hospital Services Process, VLog for reference
- NHSGGC Nursing and Midwifery Safe to Start Community Services Process
NHSGGC Example SOPs & Case Studies
- NHSGGC Common Staffing Method Case Study Poster – Maternity Services
- NHSGGC Common Staffing Method Case Study VLog – Maternity Services
- NHSGGC RTS & RE – Nursing and Midwifery Inpatient Blueprint SOP
- NHSGGC RTS & RE Nursing and Midwifery HSCP Blueprint SOP
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP – Anaesthesia Dept, GRI
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP Case Study Poster – Anaesthesia Dept, GRI
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP Case Study VLog – Anaesthesia Dept, GRI
- NHSGGC Time to Lead SOP Case Study Poster – Anaesthesia and Critical Care
- NHSGGC Time to Lead SOP Case Study VLog – Anaesthesia and Critical Care
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP – Orthotics
- NHSGGC RTS & RE Case Study – Orthotics
- NHSGGC Time to Lead SOP – Orthotics
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP – Microbiology
- NHSGGC RTS & RE SOP Psychology
- NHSGGC Time to Lead SOP – Psychology
Other Resources
If you would like an easy reference poster with a QR code for your Department, Ward or Team, please click on the link to download, share and print the HCSSA Poster.
Implementation Checklist and Quarterly Assurance Template for Teams and Departments
NHSGGC HCSSA Assurance Template Completion – VLOG
NHSGGC HCSSA Assurance Level and Implementation Template.Example March 2025
NHSGGC HCSSA Assurance Level and Implementation Template.Blank March 2025
HCSSA Blog – The Value of Collaborative Support Across HSCPs
SafeCare – Real Time Staffing & Risk Escalation Application – Coming soon!
Watch this Vlog on one of our Early Adopter Services – NHSGGC Staff – HSCP Pharmacy SafeCare Experience VLOG
- NHSGGC HCSSA – What is a Quick Guide? (Video duration 4:36minutes)
Workforce Business Systems (RLD) Programme
One of the important workstreams supporting delivery of the HCSSA in our Board and for delivery partners, is the Workforce Business Systems (RLD) Programme, who are working towards successful deployment and safe operational delivery of several applications that constitute Workforce Business Systems. These systems are Optima eRostering, SafeCare (for Real Time Staffing and Staffing Level Tools), BankStaff & LOOP, Allocate Rota, Allocate JobPlan and all related hosted technical infrastructure and integrations for these RL Datix applications with other workforce related systems (such as Payroll, eEES and Turas).
We are in the process of reviewing a revised governance and this will be available here once approved along with helpful resources.
SafeCare – Real Time Staffing & Risk Escalation Application – Coming soon!
Watch this Vlog on one of our Early Adopter Services – NHSGGC Staff – HSCP Pharmacy SafeCare Experience VLOG
Important Information – Change of Employee OnLine (EOL) to Loop!
On the 30 April 2025, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will launch Loop, a communications tool supplied by RLDatix, which links to BankStaff and Optima (eRostering). Loop online booking App is being deployed to replace Employee Online (EOL) ahead of its decommission on the 31 May 2025. Loop provides the same functionality as EOL as well as including some new features. Watch a Demo Here
Further correspondence will be distributed in the coming days with additional information and user guides to provide guidance on how and when to set up and start using this App. Loop will initially be deployed to all Bank staff in the first instance (from 30 April 2025). Whilst Substantive staff can download the App, they will not be able to fully utilise the functionality until Optima is deployed (core rostering tool – a replacement for SSTS). The Optima implementation plan will be communicated to all staff in due course.
For Any Queries Key contacts:
Staff Bank
- Email: staff.bank@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
- Phone: 0141 278 2555
Medical Staff Bank
- Email:ggc.medicalstaffbank@nhs.scot
- Phone: 0141 278 2671
Substantive Staff
- Email:ggc.coreerosteringteam@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
- Phone: 0141 278 2999