Care and wellbeing portfolio: newsletters

In this newsletter:

• what is the Care and Wellbeing Portfolio?
• what’s new?
• what’s happened so far?
• useful links

The Care and Wellbeing Portfolio

As Scotland emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic we urgently need to tackle the long-standing inequalities in health and wellbeing that have been exacerbated by COVID-19.

To do that we’ve created the Care and Wellbeing Portfolio which brings together work aimed at improving population health and reducing health inequalities, with health and social care and wider public sector service reform. 

The need for a more coherent approach connecting our outcome ambitions to our reform actions was clear from public and stakeholder engagement over past few years including the Citizen’s Assembly, Social Renewal Advisory Board, Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Citizen’s Panel and engagement with the Health and Social Care Alliance.

We’ve called it a portfolio because it brings together significant programmes of work, including the Preventative and Proactive Care Programme and Place and Wellbeing. These new programmes are designed to deliver on the priorities of the Christie Commission and the ground-breaking work of Sir Michael Marmot. That means working with communities, the third, public and private sector organisations to reduce health inequalities and drive improvement in health and wellbeing locally, and recognising the impact of public services as Anchor Institutions within the community to support local employment and community wealth. But as a portfolio we are also working across all of government to develop the care and wellbeing contribution to other significant programmes of work including on climate change, on improving outcomes for children and young people including child poverty and the Promise and driving innovation in healthcare. These are the priorities set out in the SG and CoSLA joint Covid Recovery Strategy7 and reflect the priorities set out in the Scottish Budget on 15 December.

The portfolio is designed to recognise that the “how?” matters as much as the “what?” so we have systematically focused on how change is enabled. That means Enabler Programmes on workforce, co-design with service users, financial sustainability, digital and data, innovation, analysis and evidence, and change and leadership. Rather than each portfolio programme have separate workstreams for these enablers we have established them to do it once for the portfolio.

What’s new

The recent digital launch of the Preventative and Proactive Care Programme was a great success with over 300 attendees from across the health and care system. 

This is one of the programmes sitting under the Scottish Government’s Care and Wellbeing Portfolio. The aim is that we will develop and test new or enhanced ways of working in health and social care in order to improve:

• holistic wellbeing outcomes for people who have multiple and/or complex needs
• outcomes for people who are at risk of inequalities in healthy life expectancy
• outcomes for people who may have identified needs and are waiting for treatment - by improving preventative, proactive, person centred models of care

Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE)

One of the dedicated work streams in the Preventative and Proactive Care Programme is Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE) and the intention is to implement GIRFE across Scotland by summer 2025. The GIRFE policy team are committed to co-designing the implementation of GIRFE is establishing GIRFE pathfinders.

The pathfinders are an opportunity to co-design and implement new ways of working to deliver meaningful and person-centred outcomes. They provide an opportunity to engage with Scottish Government and influence policy development, in addition to understanding enablers to success and how barriers can be removed. They also provide an opportunity to shape GIRFE nationally through the development of the GIRFE national toolkit.

11 pathfinders have been selected from 11 Health and Social Care Partnerships - representing 2.2m people and 40% of the population of Scotland. The pathfinders cover five thematic areas, with a number covering the whole population. The table below shows all 11 GIRFE Pathfinders and the thematic areas each will cover. Pathfinders were confirmed in writing to the executive lead in each pathfinder area on 28 November 2022. The first session of the GIRFE Design School will take place on 14 December 2022.

In addition to the 11 Pathfinders we are also developing a GIRFE Learning Network – a collaborative approach to sharing learning across Pathfinders and organisations throughout Scotland. Further information on these and information about GIRFE, the GIRFE Principles, process of co-design and commitment of pathfinders are available in an information pack available on request from GIRFE@gov.scot.

What’s happened so far

The portfolio board has been meeting regularly since its first meeting in April 2022. The latest meeting was held on 10 November and discussion included an update on the work around the role of the NHS as a community Anchor to redirect wealth back into local communities to help improve population health. The Anchors workstream allows the portfolio to make real change in delivery in the first one to two years and will focus on workforce recruitment and asset procurement to support local communities. Details of the portfolio board membership and copies of the minutes from previous meetings are available online at: Care and Wellbeing Portfolio Board.

As work has got under way, the portfolio board has considered an initial delivery plan including key priorities across programmes and enablers:

• three task and finish groups established to help shape priorities for anchors work on: procurement, workforce and land and assets
• work has progressed around the NHS Climate Change and Sustainability strategy with the development of adaption policy options
• under the Workforce Enabler, a national leadership development programme has been established to enable change and reform
• an Innovation Adoption Pathway has been established to spread technologies that will improve population health
• pathfinders will be testing models of care to support the development of the next phase of multi-disciplinary teams

The next portfolio board meeting is scheduled for January. It will consider the delivery plan and how best to build on this work in the coming year. 

Useful links

Care and Wellbeing Portfolio Board minutes.

Get in touch

Please get in touch with the team if you would like to find out more about the care and wellbeing portfolio NSS.CareAndWellbeing@nhs.scot.