The Scottish Borders Health and Social Care Partnership has launched the first Scottish Borders Healthy Lives Week today (Monday 1 October), encouraging everyone to play their part and make the right choices to support and protect vital services into the future.
The new campaign comes on the back of the Partnership’s refreshed Strategic Plan, which is now published and encourages people to play their part in a number of key areas.
This includes asking people to make the right choices to keep healthy and active; access the right services, at the right time and in the right place and make use of the wide range of local support services available in communities.
As part of the campaign, the Partnership brought together key stakeholders today at the Galashiels Transport Interchange to launch its own strand of the #yourpart campaign in order to promote the key messages which will help support the Partnership deal with challenges and pressures on its services.
This included representatives from all Community Planning Partners, who were present to show their support and commitment to helping people to live healthy and safe lives.
Robert McCulloch-Graham, Chief Officer Health and Social Care Integration, explained: “The campaign we launched today will help promote the message that everyone has the opportunity to make the right choices in life, not only to live healthier, happier lives, but also to do whatever they can to help us reduce pressure on services which are becoming increasingly stretched.
“We are encouraging and supporting people to look after their health, access the right services at the right time and make the most of the wide range of services and support available in communities. Not only will this have positive benefits for people, it will also contribute to easing pressure on our range of important services such as our Emergency Department and Minor Injuries Units.”
The Partnership’s Strategic Plan for 2018-2021 sets out its key objectives and actions for improving health and social care services in the Borders. This has been streamlined to focus on three main objectives – to improve the health of the population, to help patient flow through the hospital and to increase the capacity within communities to care for our population.
Mr McCulloch-Graham added: “We continue to be ambitious and put in place transformational plans to improve and streamline our services, but the expected increase in our older population will hugely increase demand on our health and social care services which are already stretched. This is why we absolutely need to change the way in which we operate our services, and in return we are asking our residents to play their part to help us.
“We are committed to doing this through a range of actions including continuing to rollout a range of services which are already proving successful. This includes initiatives such as our What Matters Hubs and a range of activities provided by the Community Capacity Building team.
“If everyone plays their part in whatever way they can, it should have a positive impact on public service finances which means we can target the limited resources we have on those services that need it most and are most valued by our communities. It also means we are more likely to be able to maintain them in the longer term.”
A wide range of events/activities is being held throughout the week to promote what services are routinely available to communities during Healthy Lives Week, which runs from 1-7 October. The programme is available from www.scotborders.gov.uk/integration