What we do
NHS Health Scotland's overall aim is to provide leadership and work with partners to improve health and reduce health inequalities.
By increasing knowledge, providing evidence of effectiveness and developing public awareness of important health messages, NHS Health Scotland is helping to build a healthier future for everyone living in Scotland. In keeping with our priorities, a central part of our work lies in supporting Health Boards to achieve their health improvement targets, as set by the Scottish Government and laid out in their local delivery plans.
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The role of NHS Health Scotland
Key aims and work areas
The Role of NHS Health Scotland
The role of the NHS in improving health was previously described in 'Delivering for Health' (2006). It was further developed in 'Better Health, Better Care' (2007), describing the NHS in Scotland as an organisation that 'helps people to sustain and improve their health, especially in disadvantaged communities, ensuring better, local and faster access to health care.'
'Better Health, Better Care' lays 'the groundwork for a more radical and inclusive approach to achieving shared objectives, including goals to tackle poverty and disadvantage, and to regenerate our most deprived communities.'
NHS Health Scotland is a Special Health Board with a national remit. We play an important role in improving the health of everybody living in Scotland and tackling inequalities in health.
Our primary focus, as an organisation, is to work with local NHS Boards and their health improvement partners during the implementation phases of public health improvement and health inequalities programmes, and other initiatives designed to achieve health outcomes that meet public health HEAT (Health improvement, Efficiency and governance improvements, Access to services and Treatment appropriate to individuals) targets, promote equality and diversity, and address local priorities, thereby supporting the national outcomes in Single Outcome Agreements.
For more information on our organisational priorities for 2011/12, please see our Business Plan.
Key aims and work areas
Our overall aim is to provide leadership and work with partners to improve health and reduce health inequalities in Scotland. This can be broken down into four key areas of work.
1. Supporting HEAT targets
We have dedicated teams to support local NHS Boards achieve the health improvement HEAT targets. These currently cover:
- child oral health
- child healthy weight
- alcohol brief interventions
- suicide prevention
- smoking cessation
- cardiovascular health
2. Supporting the development, implementation and evaluation of the Scottish Government’s broader health improvement and health inequalities strategies
We deploy our resources to support policies, strategies and initiatives for the following:
- A range of health improvement priorities, such as alcohol, smoking and mental health.
- Empowering and enabling Scotland’s working-age population to live healthier lives.
- Eliminating discrimination and delivering measurable change in the fairness of health service provision.
3. Strengthening the infrastructure for the development, delivery and performance of health improvement and reduction of health inequalities
To ensure effective, efficient and coordinated working, we collaborate with partners across the whole health improvement system. Drawing on our core skills in knowledge-gathering, dissemination and capacity building, we help create the infrastructure needed to make sure policies are implemented.
The things we do include the following:
- Provide a clear picture of the health of the Scottish population and the factors that affect it.
- Promote messages to encourage cultural change in the way people think about health, as well as the broader things that impact on health, including fairness, discrimination and the environment we live in.
- Build networks and partnerships, bringing people together to share learning and develop good practice.
- Improve the quality and effectiveness of health improvement outcomes through planning and performance management.
- Inform effective planning and practice at a local level by sharing information, giving a national overview, and analysing performance.
- Bolster links and learning in health improvement and health inequalities on an international scale.
4. Ensuring that the organisation is resourced and managed to deliver its goals and on track to achieve the overall business improvement goals set for 2012 as described in our corporate framework
In order to deliver our health improvement and health inequalities work, we need to:
- Ensure that our organisation works as effectively as it can, with each team within the organisation supporting each other to deliver.
- Have the right infrastructures in place to ensure that our services and products are effectively communicated and disseminated.
- Be clear about how and where we need to make further improvement in our business processes to ensure that we are responding to our customers’ feedback and ensuring that their needs are always met.
- Be mindful of the public sector reform agenda and of our obligation to work towards the national performance framework outcome: ‘Our public services are high quality, continually improving, efficient and responsive to people's needs.’
Updated 08 November 2011