Realistic Medicine

You may have heard of the term Realistic Medicine, but are unsure of what it means.

The Chief Medical Officer produced the first Realistic Medicine Annual Report in 2014-2015 and since then four further reports have been produced. The most recent report is “Recover, Restore and Renew” produced by Dr Gregor Smith, Chief Medical Officer.

Although the Realistic Medicine reports have come from the CMO, the principles within them encourage all professionals to involve people more in decisions made about their care. It recognises that not one approach will suit all patients and empowers patients to learn more about their healthcare. It is important that professionals describe the risks and benefits of particular treatments as they apply to an individual. This approach will ensure health and care services are selecting the most appropriate test and treatment for that person. As a result, the care provided is likely to address the real issues at hand and not over or under treat someone.

There are six key principles within Realistic Medicine:

Two key principles within Realistic Medicine are to change our style to shared decision making and to build a personalised approach to care. You should expect to be given enough information and time to make up your mind about what treatment approach you want to accept.

If you are presented with treatment options by your health or social care team, it could be in the form of a medication or surgery, you have the right to ask for some detail. These are “BRAN” questions that you might want to ask:




By asking these questions during your appointment will help you be fully informed of your treatment plan. If you have been offered an NHS Tayside Near Me consultation you may have already seen this pop up as you have waited.

Realistic Medicine will help to improve the NHS along with other services in the treatment it offers by:

• Increasing shared decision making between healthcare professionals and patients.
• Introducing a more personalised approach to care.
• Support improvements to reduce harmful and wasteful care.
• Supporting the workforce to become improvers and use innovation to promote change within our healthcare system.
• Joint working between healthcare professionals to avoid duplication and a streamlined care package that best meets the needs of the patient.

In NHS Tayside there is a Realistic Medicine Programme which supports individual projects of improvement work aligned to the six principles. The programme is committed to improving the healthcare system and offering support to individuals and services.

We know that involving the public in this programme will enable us to work together to provide the best possible service. We will be running a public participation group for insight into the programme, to seek views and opinions.

Should you have any comments please do get in touch by contacting Lana.Page@nhs.scot