Delivering safe, effective, quality care to patients is at the heart of our business in healthcare.

To address this there is a professional desire to develop and implement a Care Assurance and Accreditation System (CAAS).

Speaking at a Hairmyres CAAS event, Anne Leitch, senior nurse for medicine, said: “CAAS it is intended to ensure nursing staff at all levels have a better understanding of both frontline and management issues.

“The overall aim to allow more delegation of decision-making responsibility to frontline nurses and midwives, and release senior staff from office-based functions to spend more time on patient care.”

The CAAS approach is based on a model used within Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and is designed to support nurses and the multi-professional team to identify and build upon what works well and to take effective action where further improvements are necessary.

While the overall responsibility and accountability for achieving and maintaining the required standards lies with the Senior Charge Nurse/Midwife and the wider team, senior professional nursing staff and other specialist services also have a key role to play in supporting them, working collaboratively across systems and disciplines, to ensure continuous improvement within their wards and departments.

Nursing staff at Hairmyres held an event to ensure staff understood what is meant by CASS and what it means for the hospital. The event was also an opportunity for staff to learn what work has been undertaken with CAAS, how this may support them, and what the future direction of travel is.

Susan Friel, chief of nursing services at Hairmyres Hospital, said: “Overall the CAAS event was a very successful day and according to participants would be well worth repeating on an annual basis.”