How we’re doing: our Quarter 1 (April – June) Year 2 Corporate Strategy progress update

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Meghan McEwen and Laura Skaife-Knight pictured together in The Balfour

Our Corporate Strategy and five strategic objectives (our “5 Ps”: Place, People, Patient Safety, Performance and Potential) support delivery of our continuous improvement and our Promise (vision) which is to look after our community and provide excellent care.

How we did in Quarter 1

There are 15 priorities and 30 deliverables in our Corporate Strategy Delivery Plan for Quarter 1 of 2025/26. In response to staff feedback about too many priorities, this is half the number of priorities we had last year.

At the end of June, no actions were red (significantly delayed), 1 action is amber (partially delayed) and 13 actions are green and on track.

Strategic objective 1 – PLACE (Director of Public Health, Dr Louise Wilson = Executive Lead)

Quarter 1 progress includes:

  • Strong engagement with our GP Practices to improve our weight management pathways and increase smoking cessation referrals
  • The new Population Health Framework which will help streamline and co-ordinate system-wide activity was published by Scottish Government in June 2025. A summary was presented to Orkney’s Community Planning Partnership in July 2025 by NHS Orkney leads
  • A communications campaign for Physical Activity for 2025/26 has been developed nationally and these have been shared with our community and staff. Promotion of physical activity guidelines have been sent to all NHS Orkney GP practices
  • Work has started to map out the timeline and governance process for the future MRI Service so that we have a long-term sustainable solution for our community

Strategic objective 2 – PATIENT SAFETY (Medical Director, Dr Anna Lamont = Executive Lead)

Quarter 1 progress includes:

  • Our operational governance review is nearing completion following engagement with a range of staff. The output of this work will be a refreshed operational governance model for consideration by the Senior Leadership Team to reduce duplication of papers, information and attendance at meetings and ensure respectful governance is a feature of how we do business here
  • To ensure we act on feedback from our patients to further improve access to Mental Health, Dentistry, Neurodiversity, Outpatients and Primary Care services, a carer representative has been appointed and is a full member of our Integration Joint Board in Orkney, which is a welcome development

Strategic objective 3 – PEOPLE (Director of People and Culture, Jay O’Brien = Executive Lead)

Quarter 1 progress includes:

  • iMatter survey results for 2025 showed improvements for a fourth consecutive year. Action planning is now underway with a deadline of the end of July 2025
  • We’ve launched a new recruitment campaign – “Where Compassion meets Adventure” – which positions Orkney as a great place to live and work to support the attraction, retention and development of our people
  • Engagement work has started with our Board, Senior and Extended Senior Leadership Team to develop our new behavioural standards to underpin our values. Our People and Culture Team are attending department team meetings to maximise input from you
  • CEO and Executive Directors have completed 360-degree appraisals to support personal and team development
  • We’ve agreed our new Leadership Programme – which will consist of (1) Quality Improvement training (2) Managers’ programme with training modules and (3) Leadership Development programme for Extended Senior Leadership Team

Strategic objective 4 – PERFORMANCE (Executive Director of Nursing, Midwifery, AHPs and Chief Officer for Acute, Sam Thomas = Executive Lead)

Quarter 1 progress includes:

  • To ensure we deliver our 2025/26 financial plan of achieving a £2.176m deficit as at 31 March 2026 and continue our path to de-escalation from level 3 of the NHS Scotland Support and Intervention Framework and return to financial balance by 31 March 2029, a new Monthly Financial Escalation Board has been stood up. Our finances and savings are off track by circa £200K in Quarter 1, leading to immediate actions being implemented to close the gap (a separate communications will follow on this later in the week)
  • To meet the conditions of the transitional funding from Scottish Government, we’ve completed a full budget-setting exercise, which has now been signed off by all budget holders. This means we now have stronger monthly financial reporting in place, and variances from the plan can be identified and addressed early
  • PHIO (self-management app for Physiotherapy) is now live and rolled-out to GPs and wider community to further reduce waiting lists in our Physiotherapy Service
  • All patients waiting more than 52-weeks for care and treatment have been appointed except those patients who are unavailable. Plans are in place for patients currently unavailable to support appointing when they become available, so we meet the Scottish Government target of zero patients waiting no longer than 52-weeks for treatment in hospital and the community by March 2026
  • We continue to further improve the discharge experience for our patients particularly those living on our ferry-linked isles, and pre-noon discharges are consistently >20% (sometimes closer to 40%) 7-days a week which signals progress

Strategic objective 5 – POTENTIAL (CEO, Laura Skaife-Knight = Executive Lead)

Quarter 1 progress includes:

  • The Clinical Services Review is now complete. Thank you to everyone who engaged and contributed to this exercise. A key list of recommendations is being mapped out to explore transformational and service redesign opportunities so that we can ensure we have more sustainable services moving forward
  • To accelerate digital transformation, a plan is now in place to introduce text message reminders for outpatient clinics
  • We now have the digital infrastructure in place to enable clinicians in Primary Care to use the national digital dermatology platform. The new pathway allows Primary Care clinicians to take images of a patient’s skin using a mobile device as part of the referral process. This means that Dermatology decision-makers can access this digital image to triage, diagnose and assess skin conditions without the patient being physically present
  • To support the introduction of Electronic Patient Records in our Community Mental Health Team (CMHT), work has commenced to establish the infrastructure required to oversee deployment of the system. Digital Champions have been identified within the CMHT to promote and encourage the use of MORSE in their area

We are now well into Quarter 2 and continue to focus on our highest priorities – which include:

  1. Further improving patient and staff experience
  2. Reducing waiting times – and ensuring we deliver our plans to have zero 52-week wait patients by the end of March 2026
  3. Recovering our financial position and delivering our agreed Financial Plan and Savings Plan for 2025/26

We are grateful for the support we continue to receive from our community and partners as we continue our improvement journey, and to our staff, for all they do to look after our community and provide excellent care.

We continue to move forward, however, must continue to remain focused on delivery in the areas in which improvements are needed for our patients, community and staff and by working together – we have every confidence we can do this.