What this document is
Learning from Scotland's NHS is a July 2017 research report from the Nuffield Trust, a British health policy research charity, written by Mark Dayan and Nigel Edwards. It examines what Scotland's devolved health service does differently from the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and asks what the other UK nations might learn from it.
The report credits Scotland's approach to quality improvement with leaning on the motivation of frontline staff rather than imposing changes from the top down, coordinated through a single national improvement body rather than fragmented across separate initiatives. It points to reductions in stillbirths as one concrete result and describes Scotland's model as more coherent and continuous than comparable efforts elsewhere in the UK. The authors do not present Scotland's system as a template without flaws: the report also covers continuing health inequalities, difficulty shifting care out of hospitals and into community settings, and financial strain on health boards.
Nigel Edwards was, at the time of publication, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust. The report remains available on the organisation's own site as part of its ongoing comparative work on the UK's four health systems.
Where to find it
Available from Nuffield Trust.