HRIS eNewsletter

May 2012, Issue 21

Welcome to the twenty-first edition of our quarterly eNewsletter. In this, you can find out about the work we've been doing over the past few months.

We have started revising the national leaflet Making a complaint about the NHS along with the 14 local versions. This revision takes account of the secondary legislation around the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and the updated Can I Help you? guidance. It reflects policy changes such as the new obligation for NHS service providers to demonstrate how feedback, comments and concerns are recorded and acted upon. This information will also be produced in A4 factsheet format, in BSL, audio, large print, easy to read and in ten community languages.

We hope to have the revised information available in June 2012.

For more information about this work email Sheila.

We've just published the revised versions of: How to see your Health Records Confidentiality - it's your right Over the coming weeks, we will publish British Sign Language versions and dual translations in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Hindi, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. You can subscribe to our RRS feeds to find out when these resources will be added. The revised information is available in the following formats: A4 factsheet, audio, easy-to-read, large print. Confidentiality - your rights (the young people's version of the confidentiality information) has also been updated. For more information about this work email Brigitte.

HRIS have continued to work with the Scottish Government to develop The Charter of Patient Rights and Responsibilities. The Charter is a requirement of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and must be published by 1 October 2012. Carole Millar Research completed the user-testing of the draft Charter and sample supporting information at the end of February 2012. The draft Charter was amended to reflect feedback from the user-testing. The Scottish Government are now carrying out a formal public consultation on the draft Charter. This is open until 30 June 2012 and you can view the consultation here.

We have also been developing the remaining supporting information. This includes seven factsheets and a summary leaflet. The supporting information aims to provide members of the public with practical information about the health rights set out in the Charter. The drafts will be user-tested between June and August 2012. We are in the process of appointing a research consultant for this work.

For more information about this work contact the team.

The Scottish Government has asked HRIS to consider the development of information about children’s health rights and how The Charter of Patient Rights and Responsibilities applies to children. This information will be designed to help children and young people understand their health rights when using the NHS in Scotland. Parents and carers will hopefully find it helpful too.

We will shortly bring together stakeholders with expertise in children’s health rights to advise on the direction of this work. If you are interested in helping us develop this information please email the team before 15 June 2012.

We have now completed the revision of  It’s okay to ask - this is a list of useful tips and questions patients can ask during health care appointments, helping them to play an active part in their care and treatment. The revised leaflet is available in the Patient information section of our website where an audio and large print versions have been published. A BSL version is currently in production. For more information about this work email Sheila.

To keep you up to date with our work, here is a summary of key outputs over the next few months. For more information about any of our work, please email the team.

June

• The revised complaints information will be published.

July

• We will revise our poster Help your NHS get it right!
• We will review Have your say! Your right to be heard
  

September

• We will revise Getting NHS dental treatment in Scotland.
• The seven factsheets about health care for overseas visitors will be reviewed.

Go to the Professionals section of our website for a detailed catalogue of HRIS resources, including current version numbers and revision dates. Up-to-date print files are also available in that section.

We don’t yet have a date for our move to NHS 24, but we expect to know very soon. We will be in touch with all our contacts as soon as information becomes available.

The last HRIS steering group took place on 23 March 2012 and the minutes are now available in the Steering group section of the website.

For more information email the team.