HRIS eNewsletterMay 2007, Issue 1
Welcome to the first edition of our new quarterly eNewsletter.
Regular readers will notice that the format has changed quite a lot since our last newsletter! We hope that you will find it interesting, attractive and easy to use.
If you have any problems with the new format, please contact us. You can find our details at the bottom of the newsletter.
Following the recent Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish Executive departments have been re-arranged into Directorates, with health being the responsibility of the new Directorate of Health and Wellbeing. In response to this change, we will now talk about our work as being “on behalf of the Scottish Executive Directorate of Health and Wellbeing”.
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As you may know, The NHS and You was due to be revised in July. Following the change of administration at the Scottish Executive, we have decided to postpone the re-issue of this leaflet. The SNP government has made a commitment to introducing a Patients’ Rights Bill, which may affect the content of The NHS and You. We’ll let you know when the leaflet will be reissued.
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We are continuing to maintain and improve the usability and accessibility of our website to allow as many people as possible to access our information.
To help us achieve this, Isla attended a training course run by RNIB in March on ‘demystifying accessibility’. Following on from this we are developing a policy to set out our aims and objectives to enhance accessibility.
But we need your help! Please let Isla know if you have had any difficulties accessing parts of our website, or if you have any tips or suggestions for improvements. Or you can let us know which parts you like. We’d be keen to hear if you have used our website to access any of our information in alternative formats – for example our audio versions, or the British Sign Language version of The NHS and You. Any comments or feedback will be greatly appreciated and we can use this to improve our site.
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Our work with the Health Improvement Strategy Division (HISD) of the Scottish Executive Directorate of Health and Wellbeing, to produce a leaflet for the public on screening, is ongoing.
We are carrying out a series of focus groups to test the content, language and layout of the leaflet. Participants will also be asked for their views on the best way of making this leaflet available to the public. We expect to receive the report on the findings from this consultation in July, so we’ll keep you posted! >> Back to the top
Our leaflet ‘Making a complaint about the NHS’ is due to be reissued in June. We will continue to produce local versions of this leaflet for NHS boards, which will include updated complaints contacts for each area. We are on track to meet our June deadline, when boards will be sent the new files so they can print and distribute copies of the updated leaflet.
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In 2006, the Scottish Executive asked us to look into developing a list of questions for patients to use in any consultation, and for any condition.
Many patients and carers find it difficult to ask their healthcare team questions, so a list of general questions can help them feel more confident, and more involved in their treatment. It can also provide a stepping stone to more detailed information about a patient's illness or treatment, or other aspects of their care.
We carried out research with both patient and professional groups last autumn to test attitudes towards the usefulness of a list of 'questions for patients'. In our report to the Scottish Executive we said that most people thought this was a good idea. We proposed that these questions should be piloted in a few places to check what impact they had, both on patients' experiences and also on health professionals.
We are now looking for a research company to help us run and evaluate this pilot, which we hope will be completed by the end of October 2007. More information about this is available from Elaine Dunlop. Or if you would like more details of the patient consultation we completed at the end of last year, see a copy of the consultation report.
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A newly published research report from the Scottish Consumer Council
has found that the NHS in Scotland is often failing to provide a good
service to people who contact their local NHS looking for advice or
information. An extensive mystery shopping exercise found that only
half the phone calls made to NHS boards resulted in callers’ needs
being met, although some people’s experience was more straightforward,
and produced good results.
It also found that: - confusing
contact information for NHS services in phone books can make it
difficult for the public to know where to go with enquiries;
- information on websites is not always consistent with phone book listings;
- more than half the calls made to the NHS were transferred and, of these, a quarter were routed to the wrong person; and
- several NHS boards failed to reply to e-mail or web-based enquiries.
Some
kinds of enquiry were handled better than others, suggesting that
front-line staff need training in how to transfer calls appropriately.
There is also a need for greater awareness of new services and
structures, and of the range of printed information that may be
available to send out to callers.
You can see the full report
"Call for information: the experience of members of the public in
contacting their local NHS" on the Scottish Consumer Council's website.
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We have updated the leaflets
‘Confidentiality – it’s your
right’ and ‘How to see your health
records’. These leaflets tell you how the NHS protects your personal health
information, and of your right to see your health records.
We have sent the master files of the leaflets to NHS boards throughout Scotland. Your NHS board is responsible for printing the leaflets and distributing them to GP surgeries, hospitals and other places that provide NHS care in your area. We are producing the leaflets in a number of alternative formats: the large print and translated versions are now available from our website and we will be adding other formats over the next few weeks.
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Did you know that you will be taken off your NHS dentist’s register if you don’t go for an appointment within 3 years of registering or your last appointment? Changes to dental regulations in Scotland mean that, as of April 2006, you now have 3 years rather than 15 months to renew your registration by visiting your dentist.
The Scottish Executive asked us to produce a patient information leaflet to alert people to this change. We have included information on how and why people should register with an NHS dentist and set out when a patient can be taken off a dentist’s register.
We tested the leaflet with members of the public. We were pleased with the results of the consultation, as the responses indicated that the leaflet was pitched at the right level. Another clear message emerging from the feedback was the importance of providing the information in alternative formats, including minority languages and easy read formats. We will pass on these comments to the Scottish Executive. We hope that this leaflet will be finalised in the next month or so. Look out on our website for information on when and where the leaflet will be available. We will keep you updated as work progresses.
We’ll be at some events over the next few months. - Alzheimer Scotland's national conference: 'Dementia deserves better', which takes place on Monday 4 June at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow,
- Information Governance conference 2007, which will take place on Wednesday 6 June at the Holiday Inn, Corstorphine Road, in Edinburgh, and
- NHS Scotland event 2007: 'Delivering healthcare for the 21st century' on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th June 2007.
Please come and see us, and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have about our work.
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