NHS Orkney overhauls decision-making structure

A shake up o f the  structure in which high level decisions are made at NHS Orkney is the first in a series of changes which aim to make the health authority more open and accountable to its staff, patients and the wider community.

There will be a new core membership of the Senior Management Team (now renamed the Senior Leadership Team). This team will meet every two weeks for up to one hour with this core membership, so that timely decisions can be made.

This comes off the back of a listening exercise with staff, conducted by the new chief executive since she took up her role in April. Mrs Skaife-Knight found that many described decision-making by the Senior Management Team as “dysfunctional and lacking purpose in its current form, with an unwieldy membership”.

She told board members that there was a “lack of evidence that decisions are clinically-led and driven” due to the Executive Management Team being the main decision-making forum.

As part of the changes taking effect next month, the Executive Management Team will cease to exist in its current form, making the way for its replacement by a Corporate Management Team. This body cease to be a formal decision-making forum, and will instead be an informal weekly meeting between chief executive Laura Skaife-Knight and the executive team

This comes alongside moves to improve both internal and external communication for NHS Orkney.

More on this story in next week’s edition of The Orcadian.