NHS Scotland praised for relations

Feb 1 2012

NHS Scotland offers a "leading example" of how British public sector industrial relations can help improve service delivery, according to a new report.

Partnership in NHS Scotland has matured into "probably the most ambitious and important contemporary innovation" in British public sector industrial relations, the study found.

It said that partnership working - between government, employers and staff representatives - in NHS Scotland is "unique".

The report, titled Partnership in NHS Scotland 1999-2011 and carried out by Nottingham University Business School, examined how innovative industrial relations can help improve service delivery.

It found that NHS Scotland's decision to engage staff as fully as possible by developing partnership agreements at national and board level is key to its success.

The result of this approach, which followed political devolution, is that all levels of the organisation have a common agenda that helps deliver better healthcare, researchers found.

NHS Scotland's partnership agreements represent the longest-established and most extensive set of such arrangements anywhere in the British public sector, the research said.

Study co-author Dr Peter Samuel said: "NHS Scotland clearly believes the best way to deliver better healthcare is to improve how staff are engaged. Employers and the Scottish government have fostered staff representatives' commitment to health policies and organisational restructuring to improve patient care. As a result, in our view, partnership in NHS Scotland has grown into probably the most ambitious and important contemporary innovation in British public sector relations." The final version of the study - co-authored by Professor Nick Bacon, now of Cass Business School - is published this week.

Heath Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "In Scotland we are determined to protect the founding principles of the National Health Service. That is the only way to ensure that patients receive the very best quality care.

"In NHS Scotland the unique nature of partnership working, where trade unions and professional organisations, employers and the Scottish Government work closely together, means that staff are very involved in improving patient services. This is a benefit to patients and staff alike and I am pleased this report recommends that other health organisations should learn lessons from the way NHS Scotland works. This report underlines the success of this industrial relations model and leaves NHS Scotland well placed to tackle the many challenges facing it today and in the future."