Senior manager clinical visits
Health Boards should ensure that senior managers accompanied by IPC staff visit clinical areas at least weekly to verify that proper attention is being paid to IPC.
- The Scottish Government's response detailed the 10 Patient Safety Essentials, which include leadership walk-rounds. These involve leaders, including executive and non-executive board members accompanied by IPC staff, visiting clinical areas to assess safety and IPC compliance.
- The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP), launched in 2008, promotes leadership walk-rounds as a core safety practice across NHS Scotland. Since launch, hospital mortality in Scotland has fallen by 16.5%.
- The recommendation for weekly visits by senior managers accompanied by IPC staff is addressed through the SPSP framework, though the frequency of visits varies by board.
How was this evidence gathered?
Response
Accepted
Response
AcceptedSection 3.1 of the Scottish Government's response details the 10 Patient Safety Essentials, which include leadership walk-rounds. These walk-rounds involve leaders, including executive and non-executive directors, and frontline staff discussing and reducing barriers to reliably delivering safe care. This initiative aims to promote a safety-aware improvement culture throughout the service, which encompasses infection prevention and control.
Published Evidence
Published assessments of progress from inspectorates, select committees, official progress reports, and other sources. Source type badge indicates whether each assessment is independent or government self-reported.
HIS IPC Standards (2022) address management oversight of clinical areas. Weekly senior manager visits with IPC staff are addressed through governance standards but compliance varies by board.
View detailed findings
National standards provide the framework but weekly senior manager clinical visits with IPC staff represent an operational practice that varies in implementation across boards.