Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 the NHS in Scotland has been on an emergency footing with all efforts focused on our response to maintaining essential services such services such as urgent, emergency, maternity, mental health, and vital cancer care. This has resulted in large backlogs of care and people waiting too long for treatment.
The NHS Scotland Recovery Plan (2021-2026) acknowledges the extraordinary response of health (including primary care) and social care staff during the pandemic and the significant impact on them. The Scottish Government has committed investment to the NHS Scotland over the next five years to increase capacity and deliver reform, innovation, and redesign to support sustainability.
The Grampian Remobilisation Plan (October 2021- March 2022) set out several key priorities (aligned to the NHS Scotland Recovery Plan) including a focus on staff health and wellbeing, management of ongoing demand resulting from successive COVID-19 waves, backlog management and progressing work to improve pathways of care. Many of these priorities will continue to be key areas of focus in our Delivery Plan 2022/23 under our Plan for the Future.
COVID-19 has stretched us all to the limit and has made the gap between people living in good health and poor health even bigger. We call this ‘health inequality.’ But the pandemic has also shown us what we can achieve when we all work together towards the same goal. In the future, we want everyone, regardless of their life circumstances or background, to have better health and better quality of life.
We need to look ahead, beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. This means looking at how we can make the biggest difference to the health and wellbeing of the people of Grampian with the resources we have.
The Plan for the Future will also build on NHS Grampian’s Clinical Strategy 2016-2021 and four overarching themes of Prevention; Self-Management; Planned Care; Unscheduled Care. Whilst good progress has been made, particularly around integration and the expansion of digital technology, we need to progress further.