Quality of care review guidance
To support the aspirations of EiC, NHS National Services Scotland (now known as Public Health Scotland, PHS) developed a central data repository and data visualisation ‘dashboard.’ The CAIR allows users to view and understand their data over time, respond appropriately and plan improvement. CAIR informs quality of care reviews at national and local level and helps to drive quality improvement in nursing and midwifery. The dashboard provides a range of visualisations and analytics to assist in the monitoring of the quality of care (quality control), understand the impact of any planned or unplanned change (quality improvement) and inform areas and priorities for improvements (quality planning).
Alongside HIS, NHS Education Scotland (NES) and the Scottish Government, PHS play an important role in the EiC programme through the development and maintenance of the CAIR dashboard and providing analytical input to the development of the measures of quality of care that are displayed on the dashboard. Data are predominantly collected by NHS boards and submitted to PHS via secure data transfer. Some data are collected by other national programmes and organisations such as the Scottish Standard Time System hosted by ATOS and NES which hosts the Quality Management and Practice Learning Environment (QMPLE) system. These national data are submitted to the dashboard by PHS with the approval of all NHS boards.
Although CAIR does not collect or report direct patient, staff or student identifiers, the personal data displayed in CAIR are classed as potentially identifiable; this means that where small numbers are reported it could potentially allow an individual to be identified with access to other information that is not collected and reported in CAIR.
More information about the measures is available on the CAIR dashboard which can be found on the PHS website.
Access to the CAIR dashboard is managed locally within the NHS boards and is allocated based upon requirement.
If you would like access to the CAIR dashboard and believe it is beneficial to the role you work in, then please contact your board’s EiC lead for more information.