We are responsible for managing and allocating public money to NHSScotland. We support Ministers in accounting to the public and the Scottish Parliament and set the strategic direction for NHSScotland.
We work to ensure that healthcare standards are met.
Actions
Specifically we are:
- providing guidance on the organisational duty of candour procedure for health, care or social work services
- working to improve waiting times for patients
- working to reduce the number of delayed discharges - people waiting to move from hospital wards to more appropriate settings
- working to improve unplanned (unscheduled) healthcare
- supporting the development of digital health and care
- working with experts to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
We also:
- review NHSScotland assets and control of capital expenditure
- produce consolidated financial reports summarising the monthly financial position for NHS Scotland (website archive)
- confirm annually that health board Annual Operational Plans (AOPs) form a satisfactory basis on which to hold the Board to account for their contribution over the year
- provide guidance to NHS Boards on local delivery plans (LDPs) – the delivery contract between Scottish Government and NHS Boards in Scotland
- maintain data on NHS Scotland performance against LDP standards – agreed priorities between the Scottish Government and NHS Boards to provide assurance on NHS Scotland performance
- regularly assess NHS board performance against the standards and provide further scrutiny and support through the operation of our NHS Scotland support and intervention framework
- published our healthcare waiting times improvement plan (October 2018)
- reviewed health and social care service resilience over public holidays in 2017
- published our digital health and care strategy in October 2021
- worked in partnership with NHSScotland to develop the Scottish Patient Safety Programme and the Acute Adult programme to work on reducing harm
Background
Quality strategy
The healthcare quality strategy 2023 to 2028 was published in April 2023 on the Healthcare Improvement Scotland website.
We established Healthcare Improvement Scotland in 2011 to take forward our healthcare priorities.
Budgets
Read information about Scottish Budget spending on health and social care 2026 to 2027.
Performance
The health and social care integrated delivery plan for 2025 to 2026 is on the Healthcare Improvement Scotland website.
Bills and legislation
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland
First Do No Harm: The Report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (the Cumberlege Review) was published in July 2020. The review examined how the healthcare system in England responds to reports about harmful side effects from medicines and medical devices, and made recommendations on how to respond to them more quickly and effectively in the future.
A key recommendation within the report was:
Recommendation 2: The appointment of a Patient Safety Commissioner who would be an independent public leader with a statutory responsibility. The Commissioner would champion the value of listening to patients and promoting users’ perspectives in seeking improvements to patient safety around the use of medicines and medical devices.
The Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Act 2023 establishes a parliamentary commissioner, independent of the NHS and government, who will:
- advocate for systemic improvement in the safety of health care (which includes forensic medical examinations) in Scotland, and
- promote the importance of the views of patients and other members of the public in relation to the safety of health care.
The Commissioner will listen to the concerns of patients and their families and will have powers to require health care bodies to provide information. They will be able to carry out investigations into health care safety issues, publish reports on those investigations and make recommendations to which named organisations are required to respond.
They will also produce a Patient Safety Charter which sets out what the Commissioner expects of health care providers in terms of standards and good practice in relation to patient safety, including how providers engage with patients and their families.
In May 2025, Karen Titchener was nominated for the role by the Scottish Parliament.
Patient rights
The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 aims to improve patients' experiences of using health services and to support people to become more involved in their health and health care.
The Act gives everyone the right to receive healthcare that:
- considers their needs
- considers what would most benefit their health and wellbeing
- encourages them to take part in decisions about their health and wellbeing, and gives them the information and support to do so
It also gives patients a right to give feedback (both positive and negative) or comments, and raise concerns or complaints, about the care they have received. The Act also requires that health boards encourage, monitor and learn from the feedback and complaints they receive.
The Act also establishes and provides access for patients and members of the public to the independent Patient Advice and Support Service (PASS) which provides information and helps raise awareness and understanding of their rights and responsibilities when using health services.
The Schedule to the Act includes a set of healthcare principles that must be taken account of when providing services.
The Act provided for the introduction of:
- the charter of patient rights and responsibilities in 2012 (revised 2019) – a summary of the rights and responsibilities that patients have when using NHS services in Scotland
- the 12 Week Treatment Time Guarantee Regulations 2012 - whereby eligible patients who are receiving planned treatment provided on an inpatient or day-case basis will not wait longer than 12 weeks from the date that the treatment is agreed to the start of that treatment
Action to deliver the rights and principles should be proportionate and appropriate to the circumstances and should balance the rights of individual patients with the effects on the rights of other patients. It should also take into account resources available and the responsibility of the health board to use resources efficiently and effectively.
More information on the development of the Act is in our website archive.
Duty of candour
The organisational duty of candour provisions of the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 (The Act) and The Duty of Candour Procedure (Scotland) Regulations 2018 set out the procedure that organisations providing health services, care services and social work services in Scotland are required by law to follow when there has been an unintended or unexpected incident that results in death or harm (or additional treatment is required to prevent injury that would result in death or harm).
Contact
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Telephone: 0300 244 4000