Driving improvement, delivering results: healthcare science national delivery plan 2015–2020

Foreword by the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport

Healthcare scientists are integral to today's multi-disciplinary healthcare team, contributing to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services.

This Scottish Healthcare Science National Delivery Plan 2015-2020 highlights the appetite and drive to maximise the contribution healthcare science makes to NHSScotland by building on the current solid platform of service improvements.

The Delivery Plan sets out service improvement programmes that will deliver high-quality, sustainable health and care services for Scotland, articulating with NHSScotland's quality agenda and recognising the need to ensure best value for services going forward. The programmes will be delivered through a pace of change that meets the overall ambitions of the service in alignment with our 2020 Vision for achieving quality in Scotland's health care and the national improvement agenda.

The deliverables are logical and relevant to the three strands of healthcare science - life sciences, physical sciences and physiological sciences - and have the potential to significantly enhance healthcare delivery and drive high-impact changes that will create improvements in people's health and wellbeing. Their implementation will, I believe, make a step-change shift in levels of understanding of the added value healthcare science brings to the delivery of our "Triple Aim" for public services in Scotland - improving quality, safety and experiences of care, increasing population health, wellbeing and equity, and ensuring best value from resources.

The delivery of healthcare is changing, and our healthcare science workforce and services must adapt accordingly to meet the challenges of the future. I commend this Delivery Plan to healthcare scientists and stakeholders and invite and encourage them to take the opportunity to use their expertise to contribute to new thinking, new solutions and new ways of working to ensure sustainable, affordable and effective services for the people of Scotland.

Shona Robison, MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport