Welcome to the spring issue of Partnership Matters. We kick off this issue with a feature on the Live Well Programme. As you’ll already know, one of the benefits of living in a vibrant city like Glasgow is having a wide variety of sporting and cultural activities on our doorstep. But for many Glasgow citizens, there’s multiple barriers to taking part. A successful pilot programme to remove some of these barriers to health equality and wellbeing in the east of the city – the Live Well Programme led by Glasgow Life – is to be expanded with the aim of testing whether the approach can be rolled out citywide. It’s a great example of our HSCP’s Maximising Independence approach in practice. By offering support in response to local health and wellbeing issues and addressing needs early on we can minimise the need for more intensive statutory services further down the line.

We also feature the launch of our first Domestic Abuse Strategy, which was developed with partners and recently approved by our Integration Joint Board (IJB) at their March meeting. The Strategy is the first of its kind in Glasgow City, and it describes what we’ll be doing with partners over the next five years to ensure people affected by domestic abuse receive the best possible care and support. It also describes how we’ll continue to seek the involvement of people with lived experience in the design and evaluation of domestic abuse services. We’ve also developed a short video about the Strategy that features stories of lived experience.

Work on our new Parkhead Health and Care Hub continues and is on schedule to open in 2024. We provide an update on the new artworks commissioned for the Hub entrance and children’s area and the work of the community benefits programme with Mental Health Network Greater Glasgow. You can also get regular information and updates for the Hub on a dedicated webpage on our website.

We also feature in this issue the work of Elevate-Glasgow and the achievements of individuals supported by them. Elevate-Glasgow is a service supporting individuals in recovery from problematic drug or alcohol misuse by delivering a variety of employability services including personal development, training and volunteering experiences, either directly through Elevate or partner organisations. At the end of February, along with Bailie Anthony Carroll from Glasgow City Council and Gary Meek, Chief Executive Officer from Glasgow Council on Alcohol and Chair of Elevate-Glasgow, I welcomed service users and guests to an event in the City Chambers to recognise and celebrate their achievements. Over 100 awards were given to participants in a graduation ceremony for qualifications, training and personal development programmes completed. Job well done to all!

We wrap up our features with the latest annual report highlighting the work of our HSCP’s Health Improvement Team. The report provides an insight into the progress made by the team around improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities over the past year. It covers activity with our local communities and key partners, and once again in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team were imaginative and demonstrated new ways of effectively communicating and supporting activity across the city.

We also include in this issue web links to more news articles that have been published on our HSCP’s website, as well as links to upcoming meetings and events. You can keep up to date on what’s happening across our HSCP with partners by following us on Twitter and Facebook, too. And if you have something you’d like to feature in Partnership Matters, feel free to email us at gchscp_communications@glasgow.gov.uk.

Susanne