Joint Future Agenda

What is the Joint Future Agenda?

IMPROVING JOINT WORKING, IMPROVING SERVICES, IMPROVING LIVES

The Joint Future Agenda aims to provide better joint working, primarily between health boards and local authorities, to deliver improved services to all community care groups. To begin with the focus will be on older people and the services they require to live as healthy and comfortable a life as possible. It includes both specific actions e.g. single shared assessment and holistic approaches such as integrating management of health and social care services. Joint resourcing and joint management will benefit community care service users and their carers in the following ways. It will

• Promote early and speedy assessment and intervention
• Remove barriers within the individuals care journey and have a positive impact on the number of patients waiting for discharge
• Provide more consistent and integrated services to localities
• Strengthen locality working leading to greater flexibility and responsiveness.

From an organisational point of view the benefits will be

Single Shared Assessment training.
• For elected and appointed members: the opportunity to take decisions in terms of a much broader range of resources and thereby help develop more ‘whole person’ approaches to care
• For senior managers: the opportunity to see needs and provide services in a way which is more responsive to users and carers needs
• For professionals: the opportunity to break down cultural and other barriers, to develop a better understanding of other’s skills and to develop a wider range of personal skills to serve users and carers
• For Front Line Staff: the opportunity to develop a wider skills base to meet more effectively the needs of individual users and carers and to support them to live the life they want.

Further details of these aspects of the Joint Future Agenda can be accessed through Scottish Health or though the Joint Future Unit Website .