PLANS TO REVOLUTIONALISE health care services in Moray have gone out for a three-month consultation period.
The Moray Health and Social Partnership (MHSP) strategic plan was launched on Tuesday – the first such plan developed since the partnership was established by an Act of Parliament last year.
In Moray the partnership is a corporate body, a legal entity that is separate from both Moray Council and Grampian Health Board, and has responsibility to an Integration Joint Board (IJB).
This means it has primary responsibility for a range of adult health and social care functions and is responsible for strategic planning of integrated services. One of its first duties is to develop a Strategic Commissioning Plan for adults in Moray.
It is described in the strategic plan how the MHSP intends to improve the health and wellbeing of adults in Moray through its delivery of integrated services aimed at achieving nationally set outcomes:
- It will describe how the integrated partnership will make changes and improvements to develop health and social services for adults over the coming three years.
- It will explain what our priorities are, why and how we decided them and how we intend to make a difference by working closely with partners in Moray
- The Plan is underpinned by a number of national and local policies, strategies and action plans. It will provide the strategic direction for how health and social care services will be shaped in Moray in the coming years and describe the transformation that will be required to achieve our vision.
Over the next three months Moray residents are being encouraged to read the plan and complete a short survey, giving their views and suggestions. The draft document and a link to the online survey can be found on the Moray Council Website.
The consultation period will run through until February 23, 2016.
Background: So what does ‘integrated health care’ mean?
- Integration of Adult Health and Social Care in Scotland was first explained by the Scottish Government in a 2012 consultation document.
- An Integration Joint Board has been set up in each region, and takes on responsibility for integrated budgets including adult health care, primary health, community health and some aspects of acute health care that are currently the responsibility of the local council or local health board.
- A Jointly appointed chief officer will run each IJB to ensure that all partners’ joint objectives are delivered.
- Integration means that the expertise and resources of adult health and social care services are combined, shared, coordinated and plans are made jointly.
Further detailed information in the Health and Social Care integration in Moray can be found online through this document.
Editor Comments
This is one of these stories we run in the sure knowledge that the majority of our readers will not read past the first few lines.
That will be those who are fit and healthy, who rarely require the attention of their health professionals and anyway, when they do someone will look after them. There will come a time, however, when many of us will need that care and need to understand how it is being delivered, who is responsible for delivering it – or, perhaps, who has failed us in its delivery.
When such a time arrives, many who allow this major change in our health care to pass them by will perhaps complain that they were never consulted in how this all happened, they were never asked. What they may not realise of course is that, actually, they were asked, they were given an opportunity to have a say on how their treatment and that of all their family and friends is delivered – they just did not think it important to take part.
That is why, if you have read down the story to this point, I would urge you to at least take a look at the documents on the end of the two links included in the article.