NHS Tayside Chair John Brown told the Scottish Parliament audit committee that performance is still not good enough and the board is taking a “fundamental look” at how it delivers services.

The Chair of NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde was brought in to stabilise NHS Tayside after revelations of financial mismanagement, governance concerns and poor performance.

Speaking to the Public Audit Committee at Holyrood, Mr Brown outlined how the board was taking a new approach by putting clinicians, support by managers, in charge of services, creating a “clinically-led organisation”. He went on to explain “it’s the clinicians who understand the patients’ needs, understand the services they deliver”.

The committee singled out child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). MSPs were told an overhaul of CAMHS is underway, with the most recent figures showing 39% of young people received treatment within the 18-week target period. Challenged by MSPs, Mr Wright said this was “simply not good enough” and added “proactive action” being taken to bring down waiting times.

A review by an expert mental health access team from the NHS regulator, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, was completed last month. Acting on the recommendations of the report, the board is appointing a dedicated CAMHS manager and a waiting times co-ordinator to “maximise all available capacity”.

Mr Wright also told the committee the neurodevelopmental pathway for children was being “actively redesigned so that can free up space for children who need the more acute CAMHS services”.

NHS Tayside Director of Acute Services Lorna Wiggin said: “We recognise our CAMHS waiting times are too long and, despite the very best efforts of all of our CAMHS staff, they remain a big challenge for us. We are determined to make the necessary improvements to ensure all our children and young people receive the best quality care without delays.”

The push to improve children’s mental services forms part of the Transforming Tayside programme, a three-year plan to make efficiency savings and improve acute services across the board. An independent review into mental health services is also underway.

The board has also received £2.74m from the Scottish Government to improve waiting times.

Former chief executive Malcolm Wright told the committee: “My conclusion at the end of my nine months at Tayside is that I think we’ve done a lot to address some of the fundamental, underlying, systemic challenges…I think the board is on the road to recovery”.

The board will review progress against the plan when it meets at the beginning of February.

 

 

(Picture: John Brown CBE, Chairman, NHS Tayside)