New national public health body 'Public Health Scotland': consultation

Chapter 4: Outcomes, performance and improvement

1. At a high-level, the Scottish Government National Performance Framework will be used for monitoring of progress in delivering public health related outcomes across Scotland. The Framework will be used by Public Health Scotland to provide assurance to Scottish Ministers and COSLA. We will also consider what additional short/medium term outcomes and performance indicators may be required in order to capture short and intermediate term progress against the Public Health Priorities and the specific role and impact of Public Health Scotland.  As far as possible, future evaluations should be able to attribute specific impacts to the public health reform programme in order to guide future strategic decision-making.

2. As part of this work, we want Public Health Scotland to:

• Encourage and facilitate collaborative working on performance management at community planning level related to both the National Outcomes and the Public Health Priorities;
• Enable effective benchmarking between local partnerships and help them share good practice and identify differences/inequalities in performance across Scotland; 
• Identify steps and potential action to better share good practice and highlight good performance and address poor performance.

3. How local partners intend to deliver against existing plans and report on achievements will already be an essential part of their local planning and annual reporting. The Scottish Government expect local partners to work together to enhance services in order to achieve improved outcomes for the public’s health and wellbeing.

4. As an NHS Special Health Board, the performance of Public Health Scotland will also be meaningfully measured, both nationally and against local planning. This will be done in ways that reflect the broad role and responsibility of Public Health Scotland to protect and improve the public’s health.

5. The vision and our aspiration for public health reform is that it delivers a Scotland where everybody thrives – individuals, their communities and the public services and arrangements that support them. This will require new measures of success that reflect how organisations work together and how citizens feel. It will require the whole system to work together, making the most of all the assets we currently have, and developing new solutions.

Question 7: (a)What suggestions do you have in relation to performance monitoring of the new model for public health in Scotland?
(b)What additional outcomes and performance indicators might be needed?