Draft healthcare and forensic medical services standards
Document Type
Standards
Summary
We are developing standards for healthcare and forensic medical services for people who have experienced rape, sexual assault or child sexual abuse. These standards will update and replace the 2017 standards of the same name. The standards cover:
- Collaborative leadership and governance
- Person-centred care and shared decision-making
- Staff training, education and support
- Responding to initial disclosure
- Needs assessment and service coordination
- Forensic medical examination
- Children and young people
- Documentation and data collection
The scope of these standards has been agreed and published in the scoping report on this page.
Draft standards have been published and the consultation is now closed. We are now finalising these standards. We expect to publish the final standards in Spring of 2025.
For more information please contact: his.standardsandindicators@nhs.scot
Our duties under the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Act 2021
Under the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Act 2021, Healthcare Improvement Scotland:
(a) (has) a duty to provide information to the public about the availability and quality of services provided under the health service or under the 2021 Act. for more information visit Analytics and intelligence for people who access SARCS on the Public Health Scotland website.
(e) when asked to do so, a duty to provide such advice to… (i) persons who provide, seek to provide or may provide services under the health service or under the 2021 Act. For more information visit Turn to SARCS on the NHS Inform website.