What is Value Based Health & Care?
Value Based Health & Care is about you making decisions about your health together with your healthcare professional. We know that offering treatment is not always the best thing to do, and when people are given more information on potential risks of treatment they may change their mind about what action to take. Shared decision making between healthcare professionals and their patients is therefore central to delivering Value Based Health & Care.
What are the benefits?
By using the principles of Value Based Health & Care we can manage patient expectations about what is possible and have realistic conversations based on what matters to each individual. This reduces potential harm from unnecessary tests or treatment and decreases waste and inefficient use of resources in the healthcare system, meaning that we can focus our resources where they are needed most.
What does this mean for me?
Creating and delivering sustainable health services requires both healthcare professionals and patients to actively contribute to care that provides the greatest value. We need you, as a patient of NHS Borders, to ask your healthcare professional about your options and have open conversations about what matters to you most. Your healthcare professional will support and advise you about the options available to you and the risks and benefits associated with your options. This will help you to make informed decisions about your care based on what matters to you most, for example, if a test or procedure is invasive and has little or no benefit to the overall outcome of your condition, you may prefer to opt not to have it but to treat or manage any symptoms that may develop instead.
Consider asking your healthcare professional the following questions at your appointments:
What are the benefits?
What are the risks?
Are there any alternatives?
What if I do nothing?
Why now?
Value Based Health & Care is not about saving money or about delivering more, but instead focuses on the needs of the individual making informed choices. Transforming healthcare services in this way will help to provide better value care for both patients and the healthcare system.
We continue to experience unprecedented demand for health and care services. Delivering value-based health and care: a vision for Scotland was published in December 2022. It sets out the challenges our system is facing and estimates that up to 20% of healthcare is of no value to the people receiving it. There is therefore a pressing need to focus on better value – both for the individual accessing healthcare and value to the healthcare system.