Across our region, colleagues and volunteers (people with lived experience and unpaid carers) in health, social care and the third sector are working through some of the toughest conditions we’ve ever known. Demand is rising, people’s needs are becoming more complex, and every organisation is facing financial pressures.
Just like many of us start a new year by ‘decluttering’ and welcoming in a fresh energy, partners have been clear that we need to do the same with the way we work – spending less time on unnecessary reporting and focusing our efforts on what really matters: getting things done. With this in mind, Steering and Advisory Board 2 (SAB2) met on 10th February to discuss a new way forward for West Glamorgan…
What’s changing?
The decision was taken to revise the governance arrangements by the Regional Partnership Board towards the end of last year. Those at the SAB2 meeting heard about how the new approach will comprise three Programme Boards under the following priority headings:
- Older People
- Transforming Mental Health
- Regional Commissioning (Transforming Complex Care).
These were selected as they are the main pressure points requiring the most urgent attention across health and social care.
It’s important to note that work in the areas of Learning Disability, Dementia, Children and Young People and Neurodiverse will continue, each reporting to the most relevant of the three Programme Boards. The Carers Partnership will also remain in place and will report to the Leadership Steering and Advisory Board.
This new approach is in response to feedback indicating that valuable time was sometimes being lost to reporting without need, and the demands of frequent meeting schedules was impacting on the ability to deliver the work on the ground.
The new arrangements will simplify how decisions are made, reduce routine reporting, allow escalation route for issues and free up time for practical action.
We’ll keep you posted on how things are going as the new arrangements come into effect over the next few weeks.