Western Isles Health and Social Care Integration Joint Board established

The Western Isles Health and Social Care Integration Joint Board has been established under new legislation designed to improve the health and wellbeing of local communities through services delivered by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and NHS Western Isles. It will ensure that health and social care provision is more joined-up and seamless, especially for people with long term conditions and disabilities, many of whom are older people.

By bringing things together into a single partnership, with a combined budget and working to one strategic plan, communities will benefit from services that are easily understood, accessible and timely, well-coordinated, safe, more effective and efficient.

Dr Neil Galbraith, Chairman of the Integrated Joint Board, said: “As Chair of the Integrated Joint Body (IJB) I welcome official confirmation that we have reached this important milestone in the establishment of joint working by Health and Social Care in the Western Isles. The Shadow Board of the voting members has been working over the last few months to establish terms of reference and to agree the fundamentals of business procedure. We are now in position to expand the IJB to include all the interested stakeholders prescribed in legislation.  I look forward to the greater involvement of the wider community in ensuring that Health and Social Care in the Western Isles meet the aspirations of all who seek the best possible outcomes for those who stand in need of care and depend upon the public services to treat them safely, compassionately, and with dignity”.

Dr Ron Culley, Chief Officer of Health and Social Care, said: “Now that the Integration Joint Board has been formally established, we have considerable work to do to prepare our strategic plan. This plan will determine how we will use the budget passed to us from the Comhairle and the Health Board. It will involve using our resources in different ways, and the plan will seek to tackle head-on the main challenges that we have as a partnership. Our ambition is to develop the strategic plan in partnership with localities across the Western Isles, to ensure that the changes it sets out have been developed with the people who use health and social care services.”

Cllr Uisdean Robertson, Chair of Health and Social Committee, said: “We are making good progress on the Integration of Health and Social Care and we are now entering the next phase with the formal establishment of the Integrated Joint Board. It is important that our communities are involved in planning services for the future at a local level and we will be taking this forward as part of our community engagement”.

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