ENGAGE&INSPIRE

The newsletter of the Third Sector Health & Social Care Support Team

A New Look For Our Newsletter

You will notice that our ‘newsletter’ has taken on a new look this month. This is a bit of an experiment because we recognise that finding the time to read a full newsletter can be challenging so we thought we would give you a taste of a different approach for a couple of months so that you can let us know what you think.

We thought it made sense to do it now as there is currently less activity to report and, as you will see below, we are currently asking you to help us to shape up the next phase of the programme.

We hope you find the new approach useful and look forward to hearing what you think!

Team News

We are delighted to announce that we have three new team members.

• Sarah Wardrop has joined the team from EVOC as our Communications Coordinator;

• Benjamin McElwee has moved from the ALLIANCE’s People Powered Health and Wellbeing Team to join us as our Poicy Support Officer, and

• Kerry Gilligan has has joined us from the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership as one of the team’s three Development Officers.

We Need Your Help to Shape the Programme

The integration landscape has not evolved as fast was originally anticipated by the Scottish Government and as a reult many of the strategic partnering we expected the programme to support are still emerging. Given this we have decided that it would be useful to fully scope your experience of integration so far and capture what you think the programme’s priorities should be going forward.​

We can’t do this without your help so we would be really grateful if you could take 10 or 15 minutes out of your schedule to complete our online survey and give us your views. 

We promise it will make a difference to what we do and what we prioritise!

Integration Update

All 31 Health and Social Care Partnerships are now operational and are beginning to settle in to their new roles. Now that things are becoming business as usual we expect to see more information about how locality planning groups are shaping up over the next few months. We are going to be tracking this closely so will keep you up-to-date with developments.

Remember to check out our Integration Arrangements Spreadsheet for up-to-date information about the integration arrangements across Scotland.

The Health and Social Care Partnership in Fife have announced that Michael Kellet, who is currently the Director of Healthcare Strategy at the Scottish Government, will take over from Sandy Riddell as the Partnership Director when Sandy retires in August. You will find a full article on the Fife Council website .

Other Integration News

The Scottish Government have published guidance for Partnerships on performance reporting, setting out the minimum requirements for a Partnership Annual Performance Report. The guidance does not place any restrictions on how reporting takes place and does not require Partnerships to use a standard template. It does put a strong emphasis on Partnerships using the opportunity to make best use of the flexibility of reporting arrangements to include additional information relevant to local circumstances, and to present information in a way that is clear for non-experts. The team have produced a short briefing paper highlighting the main content.

The Improvement Hub (the new integrated improvement resource, that replaces the JIT, parts of the Scottish Government’s Quality and Efficiency Support Team and Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Safety and Improvement Team) is now up and running. You can find more information about the resources and support they offer by checking out their new website: - http://ihub.scot/

Other News

SCDC have produced a briefing on the implications and opportunities of the Community Empowerment Act for community-led health organisations. The briefing covers the main opportunities and implications of Participation Requests, as well as offering a chance to get involved in their ongoing consultation. The information and intelligence SCDC capture will feed into the Scottish Government’s official consultation on the regulations and statutory guidance.

The Rights for Life Declaration and Change Agenda are now live. These landmark publications seek to change the lives of people affected by mental health issues. You can read more about them here.

The summary report of the Creating a Healthier Scotland conversation is now available. The publication of the report was accompanied by the launch of the Our Voice framework, a suite of tools, processes and resources designed to ensure that people and communities are at the core of how health and social care services are designed and delivered so that they are enabled to maximise their impact on the health of the nation.