Chief Executive, Calum Campbell has the first year in charge of the third largest health board in Scotland under his belt.

Working with his team of directors, the former nurse, health visitor and professional footballer, wants to make sure NHS Lanarkshire ‘hits the target’ and ‘tops the league’ as the best performing health board in Scotland.

Calum said: “I joined NHS Lanarkshire at the start of 2015 along with Heather Knox and Irene Barkby. This mix of new and established executive directors meant we had a great combination of leaders, with a wealth of experience, come together to improve the health and wellbeing of the people in Lanarkshire.

“I was immediately struck by the positive attitudes of the clinicians. It was clear that they are dedicated to delivering exceptional care and what’s more they are open to change to help ensure even better outcomes for patients.

“2015 was a busy year and I would like to thank all staff for their hard work and continued excellent performance in key areas and significant improvements in others.”

NHS Lanarkshire is consistently outperforming both the national average and national target for psychological therapies waiting times. This high performance is despite Lanarkshire being the board with the second highest number of patients starting treatment.

There has also been an improvement compared with 2014 in our overall unscheduled care waiting times. Clinical and managerial staff continue to put all their efforts into reducing waiting times for our patients and improving our unscheduled care performance.

When it comes to planned care, NHS Lanarkshire is one of the best performing boards in Scotland and patients with cancer are seen faster than almost anywhere else in the country.

In 2015 interim arrangements were introduced in the Out Of Hours service. As a result, performance in seeing patients on time has improved significantly.

Also, in the community, three new health facilities, with an investment of over £43million, opened in East Kilbride, Kilsyth and Wishaw.

At Monklands Hospital the £22 million Lanarkshire Beatson radiotherapy centre opened and work began to build a new intensive care unit.

Calum and his team will be not taking his eyes off the ball as we move into 2016 and beyond.

Calum said. “Work is underway to develop a new healthcare strategy which will describe new models of care reflect our integrated approach to health and social care provision.

“It is vital to the success of the strategy that our staff and stakeholders are fully engaged with the process and welcome the continued involvement of the Scottish Health Council.

“As we enter 2016, we can’t avoid the fact that we will be expected to continue to deliver high-quality services during what will be a challenging time financially.”