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5. Services working together
It was clear from discussions that participants saw services for people with long-term conditions and unpaid carers as a responsibility that extended beyond the NHS. This means that close partnership working and collaboration across the sectors - NHS, local authority, independent and voluntary - is essential.
" GPs should be able to signpost patients to support groups and social workers."
" NHS needs to work beyond its traditional boundaries."
People spoke about a vision in which people could select from a 'menu' of options for support. This would allow people to mix and match services from different sectors to meet their own needs. The barriers that prevent this from happening included:
- 'Professional territorialism'.
- Lack of awareness of services provided by different sectors.
- Inequalities in budgets that particularly disadvantage voluntary sector service providers.
People felt strongly that these cultural, professional and structural issues need to be tackled head-on. This would mean that services could be joined-up and offer people and unpaid carers real choices that truly reflect their needs. In relation to health and social services people talked about delivering on the Scottish Executive's 'Joint Future' agenda.
A number of specific suggestions were made on how services could work together better:
- NHS should promote working across disciplines and sectors.
- Money available from a single source to support joint services for people with long-term conditions.
- Money to support voluntary organisations to provide self-management education for people and unpaid carers. It was suggested this could come from NHS Education for Scotland.
- Identify specialist within Heath Board Area who has links with local and national services.
- NHS should know where to signpost people to in the voluntary sector.
- Have people who co-ordinate services across sectors around particular conditions.
- Train staff to manage change.
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