Independent Oversight and Assurance Group on Tayside's Mental Health Services: letter regarding meeting on 23 May 2022

To:

• Grant Archibald, Chief Executive, NHS Tayside
• Greg Colgan, Chief Executive, Dundee City Council
• Phil Davison, Divisional Commander, TaysidePolice Scotland
• Thomas Glen, Chief Executive, Perth and Kinross Council
• Margo Williamson, Chief Executive, Angus Council

12 May 2022

Dear Colleagues

Meeting on Monday 23 May

I wanted to write to you ahead of our next scheduled meeting on Monday 23 May. Fraser and I are looking forward to seeing you.  David will be on holiday, as is Stephanie, so we will be joined by other colleagues from the Scottish Government who are providing Secretariat support in her absence.

We are, as you are aware, taking forward our themed work plans as detailed in our letter to you on 17 March. We have almost concluded the Patient Safety Work Plan as well as the recommendations relating to Children and Young People.  In our letter of 17 March, we asked you to confirm what arrangements you wanted to put in place to manage and coordinate your response to the work plans.  Claire Pearce has led on Patient Safety which has worked really well. We are grateful to Claire for her coordination and support.  We also have days programmed with each of the Health and Social Care Partnerships in early June, in support of the Integration Work Plan.  Again, we appreciate support from the Chief Officers for the arrangements they have put in place.  Can you please now advise on arrangements for the remaining work plans as we will shortly be starting to progress those on Workforce and on Culture and Engagement.

In our second Quarterly Report, there will be no reassessment of the 51 recommendations as the focus will be on our work plans. Our Final Report, however, in October, will include a full and final reassessment of all 51 recommendations.  Accordingly, at our forthcoming meeting, we want to share with you the approach we propose taking in respect of our Final Report, including guidance we will be issuing to TEP for final statements of progress.

We are very conscious that we have not really had the opportunity to hear from you in full on the relationship building and collective leadership work that you have undertaken with Columba 1400. Although we heard from you briefly at our December meeting, we would find it really helpful to understand more about your plans going forward, including any changes you have made based on your experiences and learning from Columba 1400, and your proposals for collective leadership in the future. Would it be possible to include this in the agenda for our forthcoming meeting?

Our meeting on Monday 23 May is the first in-person since November and will be held at The Neuk in Perth. We are grateful to Thomas for making this suggestion and to his team for their assistance with making arrangements.  Colleagues from The Neuk will be joining us at the beginning of our meeting, when we will hear more about the work of The Neuk.  There will also be an opportunity at the end to meet with service users, informally, over refreshments. 

The agenda and papers for the meeting will be issued shortly by the Secretariat.

With my thanks and best wishes.

Fiona Lees

Chair, Independent Oversight and Assurance Group on Tayside’s Mental Health Services