It is important that common project errors are not repeated. One helpful step is to ensure health boards undertaking projects have information about such common errors, and that this information is clearly communicated to them. This would ensure that health boards are aware of such errors and thereby better equipped to avoid them. The information should be updated as new, significant errors are identified. It should be drafted to be genuinely useful, so should focus on material errors which, if repeated, would have a material impact, and for which there are identified solutions which are capable of being readily implemented.

I would recommend that Assure should consider, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, whether and how to provide health boards with more detailed information about common errors and issues experienced with projects than is currently provided. For example, while I acknowledge that the 2022 paper is currently being updated and that it may be intended for a quick and preliminary reference online, I would observe that the examples of lessons learned listed there are referred to in very brief terms indeed. While I understand that brevity is desirable, a list of problems identified by short bullet points provides little by way of learning as to why it was that the problems came about, how they could have been avoided and whether and how they were resolved. NHS Scotland Assure could develop its documentation on learning from common errors in these directions.