Erica Reid Associate Director of Nursing and AHPs and Chief Nurse for the Health and Social Care Partnership

About me

Erica is a Quality Improvement Fellow and Associate Director of Nursing and AHPs and Chief Nurse for the Health and Social Care Partnership at NHS Borders.

Originally from the Outer Hebrides, Erica became a nurse in 1986 and following clinical posts, a national secondment to the Scottish Government and middle management posts, she became the National Programme Lead for Emergency Care Pathways in NHS Scotland in 2011.

Erica is an expert in patient flow, with special emphasis on urgent and unscheduled care, and a champion of improvement methodology. She understands the powerful influence of patient stories.

Erica’s career has included working for the Chief Nursing Officer for Scotland. There she was Nursing Officer for Acute Care, Service Improvement and Quality, and developed the implementation framework for revised Senior Nurse Role. She also led the production of the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals’ three-year strategy.

Leading up to her Quality Improvement Fellowship appointment, Erica was working within the Scottish Government’s Quality and Efficiency Support Team leading the Emergency Care Pathways Programme. She has developed a national improvement programme and also provides tailored support to NHS Boards.

She is committed to change and modernisation, thinks of the wider clinical impact of decision making and always ensures the patient comes first.

For over 10 years Erica has applied and promoted improvement knowledge at local, regional and national levels and firmly believes in the use of improvement methodologies in her work. ‘When I use these techniques, I know there will be significant benefits for patients and the service,’ explains Erica, ‘and through the fellowship I will learn how to develop these to the next level.’

During the year at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston, Erica focused on management of inpatient capacity and flow, and improvement methodology at organisation/systems boundaries. ‘These are core aspects of acute hospital function and the transition back to home life. We can no longer afford to get it wrong. We need patient-centred approaches that don’t compromise safe, effective care in the right place at the right time. If we get it wrong the knock on effects for patient experience and outcomes are now even more obvious.

‘As a health system we know how to generate improvements in this area but it’s now imperative that we use them to achieve a cultural transformation in the quality of health care.’ Erica believed that the fellowship was the perfect opportunity to consider this, and said she was excited and honoured to have been chosen for this experience.

‘I plan to tap into the wealth of intelligence at IHI, learn from leaders in the field and refine my own ideas and strategies to be able to return with new knowledge that I can directly apply on my return to Scotland.’