Health and social care: improving wellbeing and working cultures

Foreword from the Strategic Board

On behalf of the Strategic Board, I am delighted to introduce Improving Wellbeing and Working Cultures. The Scottish Government and its partners share a vision that people delivering and enabling health and care services in Scotland are supported organisations that listen, and with compassionate leaders and teams that focus on wellbeing, diversity and inclusion. The aim is to restore and maintain a sense of belonging where all staff are respected, feel psychologically and physically safe.

The National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland^[1] made it clear that the wellbeing of our health, social care and social work workforce, wherever you work, must continue to be a priority.

We know that the impact of the pandemic, increasing workload and the financial challenges this has caused, will be felt within our services for many years to come. To help overcome the challenges ahead, I believe we must continue to look after our most valuable asset, the staff who provide care and those that manage and lead our services.

But we need to do more and senior leaders, across Scottish Government, health, social care and social work who have given their time to drive this forward collectively, are passionate about this. The board commits to work closely with everyone working in health, social care, social work, and with wider public services, to understand current and emerging issues and take collective action to minimise their impact on staff wellbeing.

We need to enable a culture across health, social care and social work organisations where the people delivering and enabling care are supported in and by their workplace. A culture where people are able to thrive and succeed in fulfilling roles, and are enabled to provide the best possible care for the people of Scotland.

Through Improving Wellbeing and Working Cultures and the upcoming Action Plan we will support existing good practice, encouraging teams, leaders and organisations to share their best practice across organisational boundaries. We endeavour to share from what works well locally and nationally across all sectors, but also to learn from what has not worked well in the past. We will have a cohesive national approach to wellbeing, leadership and diversity and inclusion, but will think about how practice applies to the different sectors – we know that health, social care and social work, may also need bespoke approaches.

It is only through kind and compassionate leadership that listens and fosters diverse, inclusive and positive workplace cultures that we will be able to support those who provide and enable care.

We are committed to ensuring that we do not simply express warm words for our committed staff but demonstrate, through our actions, how much we value each and every single one of you.

Dr Elizabeth Kelly, Chair of the Improving Wellbeing and Working Cultures Strategic Board