‘Scottish healthcare staff need significantly enhanced training infrastructure if the country’s regional health boards are to be successfully simplified,’ insists one of the country’s leading innovation bodies

InnoScot Health believes the proposal to reduce the number of regional boards from 14 to two strategic boards covering the west and east of mainland Scotland — with different arrangements considered for the country’s three island health boards — will be a major structural challenge.

However, Executive Chair Graham Watson says that the priority of delivering consistent, streamlined work practices can be accelerated through enhanced infrastructure aimed at training the leaders of the future in everything from improving patient experience to spotting innovation opportunities.

While the NHS Scotland Academy at the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital in Clydebank has proved successful after opening five years ago, Graham believes that further initiatives like these will be required to meet the demands ahead by assisting staff in acquiring specialised skills, blending digital learning with practical training, while identifying and addressing gaps in the workforce.

He said: “The challenge of shaping the future of Scotland's NHS workforce starts now against the backdrop of a major national transition in healthcare delivery.

“While an excellent model for how to sow the collaborative seeds of positive, impactful change can be found in the shape of the NHS Scotland Academy as it celebrates its fifth anniversary, we need more — much more in fact.

“Through targeted training in areas of greatest demand, it has successfully made a measurable, meaningful difference to NHS capacity with its accelerated, partnership-led programmes helping to improve skills, service delivery, and patient experience.

“Staff who train there invariably emerge more capable and ready to lead by example in responding to complex workforce challenges.

“The Academy also has innovation in its DNA — not only by the cutting-edge nature of its simulation facilities, but in how it teaches staff to look at issues in new ways and challenges them to share their learning with colleagues for better integrated services.

“As you’d expect, the Academy offers digital teachings through the likes of Turas, but hands-on learning — so effective in ensuring a consistent, methodical approach in sometimes pressured situations — cannot be delivered remotely.

“The real challenge then is in how to replicate Clydebank’s practical success in other locations and deliver more high-quality, innovation-driven care to patients across the country.”

Health secretary Angela Constance said that the Academy’s ability to help staff gain specialist skills more quickly and support faster access to care represented “exactly the kind of innovation that will help ensure our NHS remains sustainable and responsive for future generations”.

Among many successes achieved since 2021, the Academy has expanded training for specialist theatre roles with its accelerated Surgical First Assistant Programme growing the national workforce from 19 practitioners to 47.

Training that previously took several years can now be completed in just 34 weeks.

The Academy has also advanced care in diagnostic imaging through its National Ultrasound Training Programme, delivering more than 29,000 ultrasound examinations for more than 24,000 patients, all while training the next generation of diagnostic specialists.

Graham added: “These are exciting achievements, but if the proposals for streamlining Scotland’s health boards are to truly realise simplification and reduced duplication, then readily accessible training solutions will be more important than ever.”