Welcome to the first edition of ‘Partnership Matters’, our new briefing to keep you up to date on some of the work that’s been happening across Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP). It also includes an update on how we’re continuing to respond to and manage the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on our health and social care services here in Glasgow.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been communicating and engaging with a range of people in new and innovative ways through the use of technology – the people who we support, HSCP staff, Glasgow City Integration Joint Board (IJB) Members, Council Elected Members, partners and the public among many others. This has included Microsoft Teams meetings and webinars, Attend Anywhere, videos, websites and social media. Whilst these tools can’t fully replace how we normally provide support and deliver our services, they are now additional ones that we can use to improve that experience. Since our establishment as an HSCP, we’ve been committed to regularly looking at how we can improve the way we do our business and better support our patients, service users, carers and staff.

Our new Partnership Matters briefing has been developed based on feedback to our recent Communications Survey held towards the end of March, where all HSCP staff, IJB Members and Council Elected Members had the opportunity to participate. As we moved into the next phase of the pandemic, we thought the time was right to have a short survey and ask for views on our HSCP’s COVID-19 communications, as well as to make suggestions on how we could improve them going forward.

I want to thank everyone who took time to participate in our survey. The number of responses was fantastic – a total of 946 people shared their views. Feedback on how we’ve been communicating was positive, and there were some helpful suggestions for improvement. Key highlights include:

• around 90% found our email communications useful / very useful
• the same, around 90%, found our COVID-19 briefing useful / very useful
• around 60% thought that the frequency of our COVID-19 briefing should be reduced
• 70% thought that the SMT videos were useful / very useful
• around 95% thought that service briefings post-COVID-19 would be useful and
• some comments / suggestions included reducing the COVID-19 briefing but including other updates on work happening across the HSCP; reducing web links where possible in briefings and making briefings available in PDF format so that they can be printed; using more videos and graphics to communicate and incorporating hyperlinks in COVID-19 briefings to ‘jump to’ service-specific updates.

Following feedback, our COVID-19 briefing and videos will now be monthly, and they’ll be part of our new Partnership Matters briefing. Partnership Matters will feature some of the work happening across our HSCP with partners, as well as recent news articles published on our HSCP’s website and upcoming meetings and events. We’ll make it publicly available on our website, and share it via email with a range of people: HSCP staff, IJB Members, Council Elected Members, health and social care contractors / providers including GP practices, Community Councils and third sector groups / networks. Although our Partnership Matters briefing will be monthly, I want to reassure you that it doesn’t replace how we normally communicate and engage with you, but is in addition. I hope that you find our new briefing useful going forward, and if you have any comments or suggestions for content, then please contact our Communications Team at GCHSCP_Communications@glasgow.gov.uk.

Lastly, I want to express that myself and the HSCP’s Senior Management Team remain grateful for all of the support of our staff and partners across the statutory, third and independent sectors throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s their person-centred professionalism, full commitment and sheer resilience that has kept the health and social care needs of our city supported during these challenging times. Often, staff and partners have gone above and beyond their normal roles to make sure that our patients, service users and carers have remained supported. We wouldn’t have been able to maintain support, and continue to do so, without them. We’re immensely proud of what we’re doing together for health and social care here in Glasgow. Thank you.

Susanne