Health and social care partnerships

Letter: Health and social care partnerships “not working”

11 January 2018

Sir

In regards to the letter from Andrew Walker, perhaps another way to look at the Integrated Joint Board — created to have health care and social care work in tandem — is to say that the NHS Western Isles is “back- door funding” the Comhairle.

After all, if the council is not spending all it can to get patients - when ready to leave hospital - back home, then the NHS is picking up the bill for this.

People prefer in most cases to be at home to recover, and they need a care plan with assistance from both social care workers and nurses. If the council department cannot get a care plan together, people stay in hospital at a much greater expense to the public purse. They can become less mobile and physically more dependent. A spiral ensues which is not good for either the patient nor the system of care.

Amid this under-spend by the Comhairle, is the news that they want to create a completely new facility — rather than improving home care and fixing the existing provision for institutional care — at a great expense (which they apparently cannot afford). It appears to be a classic case of a council needing shiny new things to display, in cooperation with the local developers and construction companies. It is not necessarily putting people first.

Recently a columnist in the Glasgow Herald suggested that the I.J.B.s across Scotland are not working as envisioned. That would seem to be the case on the Western Isles, too.

Barry Shelby
Earshader

Uig

Lewis