Innovation of nursing record keeping processes and systems is needed to improve patient safety and care. Almost all of the NHS Scotland regions use paper-based nursing records, which causes problems such as loss of information, poor quality recording of care and lack of access to existing patient information. It also creates a large administrative overhead. This is against the well-understood backdrop of chronic underfunding and understaffing within the NHS.

A series of 10 interviews were undertaken by the research team with senior nursing staff from: NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Lothian and, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The interviews were initially themed around two distinct questions:

How can we reduce the administrative time currently taken when keeping records?
How can we increase the value of the records kept?

The interviews were semi-structured and the questions remained similar except where non-nursing staff were interviewed such as a GP, procurement staff or a consultant. All interviews were conducted by two members of staff from the GSA involving a single interviewee, except the final interview with NHS Lanarkshire. For this final session, the initial findings were presented as a visualisation of the current issues and the interviewees were asked to comment on it. The visualisation was annotated during the interview.

The interviews were recorded and the transcripts were used for thematic analysis. The identified themes are later presented as a visual map and accompanied by a text explanation. The themes fall in two broad areas: the current issues affecting nursing records and desirable future ideas. The insights from these interviews were then used to inform the activities of the Experience Lab.

The visualisation captures the insights gathered from a series of ten interviews undertaken by GSA researchers with senior nursing professionals across six health boards in Scotland and features direct quotes to illustrate certain points. There are three parts to the visualisation, which describe the current issues discussed, what is currently undergoing change and what a desirable future nursing record might look like.