Health and Social Care

Chief Officers Spotlight: David Williams

April 23, 2015 by Linda White No Comments | Category Uncategorized

So that’s it, we’re officially into the year of integration. The Glasgow City Integration Scheme was submitted to Government on the 31^st March and we optimistically hope to be legally constituted sometime in late May.

And even though April 1, 2015 marked the start of integration year, we already have some great examples of integrated working which are delivering better, more joined-up services for the people who use them. The Cabinet Secretary came to one of these integrated services, Ashton Grange Care Home in Glasgow, on April 1^st to acknowledge the new legislation going live and to find out more about the ground-breaking work that we have been doing jointly in the city to improve how we care for older people who are fit to leave hospital but may not be ready to return home. Her visit and the recognition of our partnership working on this issue is hugely appreciated.

But, let me be clear, integration is not about a structural shifting of the deckchairs. Successful integration will demand that we embrace much more intangible concepts. Certainly, we will embark on things like co-location, shared services, leaner joint management structures and so on, but how we are with each other across a multiplicity of partnerships in future will be infinitely more powerful for the success of integration. And that is entirely within the gift of each and every one of us to take responsibility for. We can make positive change happen by the way we behave with each other – colleagues, partners and the people we care for, and that costs nothing.

The inescapable fact is that most of us are now likely to become a carer at some stage in our life. Put bluntly, the changing demographics and financial pressures mean that we will have less money available to care for more people, and we will need to care for them for longer, so the relationship between the state and the individual needs to find a new balance.

Our challenge is how we support people to feel confident enough to take on caring roles, and to feel certain that they will be able to do that role well enough for their loved ones, so that they are achieving the best outcome for the person they care for. This is the ultimate in early intervention and preventative care, realising local and community assets to their fullest and engaging with citizens in a meaningful and honest partnership. Surely, the direction of travel for all things integration.

This will not be an overnight transformational change even though we must work together at a fast pace to make change of this scale happen. So a plea to all concerned, let’s go into this in partnership in its widest sense, for the long run. Let us sustain and build on all the energy, enthusiasm, experience and ideas we’ve used to get us here – poised at the starting point of this transformational change – and let us be resilient and committed enough to keep going until we achieve that transformation.

We will need to recognise that changes of this scale aren’t best measured in short term league tables. We are modernising the way we care for people and we need to modernise how we measure results.

I am clear that the number one priority for the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership over the years to come is the health improvement of the city’s population. If, with our collective resources, talents and partnerships beyond health and social care, we can impact favourably and significantly on the general health and wellbeing of the people of Glasgow, we will undoubtedly be delivering on the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes as a consequence.

Tags: Glasgow City, People, Relationships, Year of Integration

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