The new south Glasgow hospitals are already beginning to transform patient care, Health Secretary Shona Robison has said.
Ms Robison toured the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, which will begin receiving patients early next month, and viewed the surgical and emergency departments in the South Glasgow University Hospital.
The MSP also met with nursing staff who are trialling a new system to get senior nurses and midwives out of the office to spend more time on wards, known as the care assurance and accreditation system.
She said: “It is evident how these fantastic facilities are already beginning to transform patient care.
“The £842 million South Glasgow University Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children are some of the most modern and best designed healthcare facilities in the world.
“From the outpatient self-check-in system, which will speed up the flow of patients through the hospital, to the wonderful hi-tech activity installation in the waiting room of the children’s hospital – all of this new technology will help to free up staff time and improve the patient’s experience of hospital care.
“However, at the heart of our NHS is the care that staff deliver to patients day-in and day-out.
“In this respect, the new system of assuring the quality of nursing care being trialled in the west of Scotland brings the NHS back to its roots.
“It gives senior managers the chance to spend more time on patient wards and gives frontline staff a greater understanding of the high standards they are expected to achieve.
“It puts patient care at the heart of the decisions made in the NHS, ensuring nursing and midwifery managers are visible on the wards, and empowering frontline staff to take on more responsibility.
“This is fundamentally important to delivering the highest quality care for patients.
“Ensuring we get our core NHS services right will mean that these amazing facilities I’ve seen today at the new South Glasgow Hospitals can truly live up to their potential to transform patient care.”
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde chairman Andrew Robertson said: “We are part way through the migration of 10,000 staff and 1,000 patients to the new hospitals, and each step of this process has been meticulously planned.
“I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of staff from across all these sites for their outstanding work and commitment to this process.”
The Victoria A&E department will close on May 16 and transfer to the new hospital, with Victoria inpatients also transferring over about the same time.
Patients from the Mansionhouse unit on the Victoria campus will transfer over the weekend of May 23 and 24. The A&E at the Western Infirmary will close, with inpatients on that site transferring on May 30 and 31.
The final stage in the migration will be the transfer of services from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, which will begin with the transfer of A&E services on June 10 with the transfer of all other services by June 14.