Health and Social Care
Chief Officers Spotlight: Susan Manion
March 17, 2015 by Linda White 2 Comments | Category Uncategorized
I took up post as Chief Officer in Borders in July 2014. Before that I was General Manager for the Dunfermline and West Fife Community Health Partnership, responsible for leading and managing the wide range of services and strategic programmes required to implement integration. The integration of health and social care gives us a newfound ability to integrate health and care for people in communities with the most complex health and social care needs. In Borders, we will be developing our health and care services with truly integrated provision. These are exciting times, but what this will mean for those working on the frontline?
I’m keen to get out and about and talk with staff about our local integration arrangements. I recently took up an invitation to meet with a number of Health Visitors at their professional development day to discuss the emerging integrated arrangements. We had a really useful debate about what mattered to them.
The group were interested to hear more about community child health services and where these fit into our new integrated partnership arrangements. While children’s services are not in the scope of the services to be integrated, local areas are at liberty to include these functions if they wish. In the case of the Borders though, we agreed not to include children’s services in our partnership arrangements.
I do however understand that children have to be seen in the context of their families and communities, as most children are in contact with their GP, dentist or health visitor at some point. Because children’s services won’t be included within our Integration Scheme, it’s crucial that we are clear about our responsibilities to support these services and understand where they fit within our Strategic Plan going forward.
Together with other Chief Officers in Scotland we recently established a network for getting to grips with such matters. This gives us a chance to exchange valuable information, ideas and discuss common challenges as integration arrangements progress.
Tags: Borders, Chief Officer, Child health, Integration
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Hi Anne, thank you for your comment on the blog post. I will share your message with Susan. Linda
Great to see you are settling in to your new role Susan and having worked with you for several years, I know you are absolutely committed to improving the care, health and well being of local communities. Good Luck!