Personalising Realistic Medicine
Chief Medical Officer’s annual report.
Healthcare professionals are being encouraged to deliver a more personalised approach to care by Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, who has published her fourth annual report: Personalising Realistic Medicine.
This builds on her previous reports and includes findings from a survey of nearly 2,500 health professionals about Realistic Medicine. It also includes recommendations from the Citizens’ Jury on Shared Decision Making, which was developed to support people and their families to engage at every level in health and social care.
The report outlines the need to reduce harm, waste and unwarranted variation in care across health boards as well as championing innovation and improvement. It also illustrates examples of good practice from across Scotland with contributions from world-leading experts in person-centred care.
Launching the report at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Dr Calderwood said:
“Everyone who works in health and social care wants to deliver the best possible care and treatment for the people they serve. However, simply recommending more tests, treatments and procedures does not always provide the best outcome for people, even if that care is delivered at the very highest level.
“We must be sure that we deliver the right care to the right people at the right time in the right place. Put simply, we must deliver better value care.
“That’s why building a personalised approach to care is the most important objective of Realistic Medicine. It will deliver the value we seek, better value for the people we care for and better value for our health and care system.
“We also must not lose sight of the fact that our workforce are our most valuable asset and we need to look after them too. We need to continue to provide compassionate leadership and create environments where our staff feel valued, respected and supported.
“Having witnessed the fantastic progress that’s been made over the last three years. I am convinced that now, more than ever, we can build a personalised approach to care together.”
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