‘How to Improve’

The Nuffield Trust has recently published “Learning from Scotland’s NHS”. This report was based on a select group of “30 senior leaders and experts from Scottish health and care”.

One of the primary “learning points” of this report was that Scotland should be considered as “the model of how to improve healthcare across the British isles”. What is not made clear in this report is that the improvement methodology that Scotland has embraced was introduced from the USA not by “30 senior leaders” but by three:

1. Derek Feeley, President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and former Director General for NHS Scotland
2. Professor Jason Leitch, IHI Fellow and National Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality and Strategy (Scottish Government)
3. Dr Brian Robson,  IHI Fellow and Clinical Director of Healthcare Improvement Scotland

The “30 senior leaders and experts” would seem to be “marking their own homework”.

A few personal thoughts:
I am a passionate about science but am of the view that passion should not pre-determine scientific method and process.

I have previously argued why it is unhelpful to pre-determine science as “improvement”.

I fully welcome a coordinated approach to improving healthcare.

I worry about the inherent reductionism that is the basis of IHI “improvement science”

IHI promotes learning to healthcare based upon the experience of Industry (mechanical engineering). This may work well for less complex interactional processes, such as Hospital Acquired Infection. However healthcare is rarely linear (it is more often Bayesian) and reductionist interventions (however well intentioned) can cause harm.

I have found that Healthcare Improvement Scotland (IHI) does not routinely include ethical considerations in its approach to “improvement science”.

In summary:
I would suggest that it would have been more accurate (evidence based) for the Nuffield Trust report to have been titled: “Learning from the USA”.

I welcome all learning and from all reaches of the globe. I also seek improvement. But as a philosopher and NHS doctor (of 25 years) I worry about any one-system approach.

Science needs to consider culture, ethics, narrative, and the experience of being.

“How to Improve” needs to consider the voices of people and place. It should not just be the voices of the “senior leaders and experts from Scottish health and care”.