Covid cost NHS Dumfries and Galloway “a decade’s worth of progress” in cutting waiting times for hospital operations.
The full impact of the pandemic and associated lockdowns which caused unprecedented disruption to the delivery of health and care services in the region has been revealed.
The health board has gone from making inroads on waiting lists to seeing the creation of significant backlogs.
In addition, unscheduled care teams have been put under huge pressure due to difficulties in reducing hospital occupancy to appropriate levels.
The board has now drawn up a 14-point action plan in a bid to improve the situation.
And according to the chief executive, Jeff Ace, it will have to create “a radically different model” going forward.
In a report to members he said: “Our challenge is to shape a system that can achieve or better previous performance whilst also addressing long standing workforce and financial pressures.
“It is important to stress that we are not attempting to recreate the pre-pandemic health and care system over the coming
years.
“Our financial, workforce, environmental and performance pressures are such that we will need to create a radically different model that achieves consistently high performance within this new context.”
He added: “It is for this reason that we are using a three-horizon model to set out our long-term goals and guide the short and medium-term actions
required.
“The tactical priorities for 2023/24 are again an ambitious schedule of work but must be understood only as steps in the progress towards the full transformation required.
“It is also necessary to note that there is a risk of non-delivery of aspects of this
programme.”
The most significant problems include concerns over workforce gaps reducing the ability to deliver changes and the sheer scale of financial savings being undeliverable within service constraints.
He pointed out that political pressures may also constrain the board’s ability to move towards a sustainable service
model.
The 14 draft tactical priorities include proposals to:
improve recruitment and retention;
develop and deliver a financial recovery plan for health and social care;
tackle health inequalities and support a shift towards a focus on prevention and early intervention;
complete community bed review and begin to implement its outcomes;
develop proposals to address the significant risks emerging in the delivery of dental services; and
