NHS Shetland is pleased to announce that the community-facing brochure of the Board’s Strategic Delivery Plan has been published. It sets out a five-year strategy for healthcare in Shetland.
The Board approved the Strategic Delivery Plan in April 2024 and since then, time has been taken to capture data and feedback at public events. These interactions have been included in the illustrative brochure, which NHS Shetland hopes will provide members of the public with a greater understanding of what the organisation is doing in the next five years.
The Strategic Delivery Plan sets out clearly the direction of travel and objectives for NHS Shetland to support decision making and improvement across the organisation. The plan builds on existing documents, including the Clinical and Care Strategy, the Health and Social Care Partnership Joint Strategic Commissioning Plan and the Shetland Partnership Plan.
Shetland has its own needs, challenges, and strengths as a community, and the Strategic Delivery Plan aims to ensure the Board is doing the right thing for people in Shetland — for now and into the future. There are three main goals outlined in the five-year plan:
- providing excellent services;
- creating the conditions for a sustainable organisation; and
- supporting the building blocks of healthy communities.
This strategy will enable us to build on opportunities, adapt to change, and learn from our experiences. As we move forward, we will face tough decisions about how best to prioritise what we do with the finances and workforce that we have.
To achieve our goals, we must adapt the way we work. We want to make NHS Shetland fit for the future by understanding what is working well, finding areas for improvement, and supporting our teams to use this learning to make things better for patients.
Lucy Flaws, Head of Planning at NHS Shetland, explained how this work can be delivered. She said: “We are lucky in NHS Shetland to have excellent people working across our whole organisation – the Strategic Delivery Plan brings all this good work together. Being clear about what will make a real difference for the people of Shetland will help us to make the most of everyone’s efforts and hopefully have the biggest impact. This will mean teams working closely together, both within the NHS and with our partner organisations across Shetland, to find the best solutions for people in Shetland now and in the years to come.”
Brian Chittick, Chief Executive at NHS Shetland said: “The plan details our commitment to providing care as close to home as possible, ensuring timely access to services when you need them, and working together with the wider community to build a healthier future.
“I hope you can see within the strategy that we have listened to what matters to you. We understand that health and wellbeing extend beyond the services we provide; they are shaped by the people and organisations we support. Our aim is to place NHS Shetland at the heart of our community.”
Progress with the plan will be reported to the Shetland Heath Board in a performance report combining service access and outcomes, quality measures, progress against improvement plans and key financial and workforce information. The Board will review what outcomes have been achieved, the impact of the work and the challenges being faced.
A selection of hard copies of the Strategic Delivery Plan community brochure will be available to view at all the health centres in Shetland, the Gilbert Bain Hospital main reception, Outpatients reception, Shetland Library, the Brae, Mid Yell and Baltasound Community Libraries, Mobile Library and Market House.
To view the digital version of the Strategic Delivery Plan community brochure, please click this link.