Scottish Pathways Association

You may have received information asking if you are currently involved in the Scottish Pathways Association or would like to be in the future.  If you have received this information we would encourage you to complete it as we are keen to expand our membership and ensure our direction of travel reflects your thoughts.

You may also have received information asking your opinion on how additional education and training with regards to developing integrated care pathways in your field may help improve the patient experience whilst meeting the ever increasing demands of fiscal and policy pressure.  It would be extremely valuable to gauge how SPA can help meet your needs and assist you in meeting these ever increasing demands.  We would greatly appreciate you taking the time to complete the questionnaire attached to the email and returning it as per the instructions.  If you have not received this email contact us at info@scottishpathways.com .

We would like to emphasis that SPA is your resource and we are keen to encourage new and ongoing participation from those interested in progressing the use of clinical and care pathways aligned to improving patient experience whilst giving opportunity to ensure the most efficient use of services.  If you would like to become involved or simply find out more about SPA please do not hesitate to contact us at info@scottishpathways.com or speak to David Thomson (SPA vice chair) at 07789852482.

• Read More »

We are now taking bookings for our national conference, ‘Care Pathways to Promote Quality in Scotland’ which takes place on Tuesday 25th May 2010 at the Inchyra Grange Hotel in Polmont (near Edinburgh).  The event will showcase the role of clinical/care pathways in promoting improved quality of care and is free to all NHS staff in Scotland and our local authority and non-statutory organisation partners.  For more information you can now download the Conference Flyer, Programme, Booking Form and Abstract Submission Form .

To give you more information on what SPA is all about we’ve put together the first edition of the SPA Newsletter which you can download here.  Want to join us?  SPA is affiliated to the European Pathway Association so if you are a member of the EPA you will automatically be a member of SPA and won’t need to apply to join.  For anyone else interested in joining you can either fill in the SPA Membership Application Form here or by completing the Booking Form (above) for the Conference.  See you in May!

• Read More »

In case you’ve been wondering, ICPUS is changing to the Scottish Pathways Association. ICPUS ran from 2001 and achieved its major goal of promoting the development of ICPs at a national level. The network is now taking a new direction in partnership with the European Pathways Association.

We’re planning a conference for 25th May 2010 to launch the new organisation. More details will follow in early 2010.

• Read More »

A great deal has been happening with ICPs in Scotland in the past few months.  As many of you will know, the publication of the Quality Improvement Scotland (QIS) Standards for Mental Health ICPs has resulted in a flurry of activity over the 15 Scottish Health Board areas (the State Hospital counts as the 15th board area).

A really useful aspect of the project has been the development of a set of online information resources to support local development and implementation of ICPs.  The ICP Toolkit has been partially completed and has been released to let people have a look at it and see how it meets their requirements.  The full version should be available later this year.  Have a look at it on http://www.nhshealthquality.org/mentalhealth/toolkit/ and see what you think.  It looks like it is going to be of great help – and not only to the developers of mental health ICPs.  You can also catch up on the latest news from the QIS team in the QIS Mental Health ICP Newsletter Issue 4 .

In ICPUS news, the core management group met early in the year to take stock.  We had just passed the 7th anniversary of the creation of ICPUS and celebrated the milestone of our 1,000th delegate attending the 13th ICPUS Conference (Lanarkshire, June 2007) and felt it was time to review our aims.

The group identified the key successes of 2007:

• Production of the ICP Development Workbook
• National Mental Health ICP training sessions
• ICPUS involvement in the QIS standards

And what worked less well:

• Only one conference/meeting held in 2007
• Finance
• Time needed to organise events.

So where does our network go?  We felt there were two strands:

1. Quick Wins – identify key leads by speciality + produce a newsletter.
2. Longer Term – lobby the Scottish Government + organise a key event to promote ICPUS.

So, watch this space as the next phase of ICPUS is developed to continue meeting your needs.

Other News:

• The ICPUS Workbook is still available in our Publications section, but we are in the process of reviewing it and hope to come up with a more interactive version by the end of the year.
• The Ninth Annual Conference of Integrated Care Pathways is taking place on 24th and 25th June 2008 in London.  For more information click on our Events section and go to the link for Healthcare Events.
• The European Pathway Association (EPA) had great success with its first summer school on ICPs in Italy last year.  The second summer school is taking place on September 8 – 12, 2008 at Lake Orta in Italy.  If you want to participate please click on the EPA link here.

• Read More »