Getting our message across using new ways of communicating

Finding ways to communicate effectively with our partners is one of the key priorities of our Integrated Care System (ICS).

We recognise that our communications must work across many channels, for many different audiences. Our Communications Team will be supporting the ICS Leadership Team to develop a communications approach which can work for all stakeholders and partners.

My own contribution to this ambition is to provide a regular blog – here is my first offering.

I aim to provide insights into the work of the chair in our emerging ICS, creating an ongoing narrative as the ICS establishes its role in our health and care system.

No-one needs reminding that this is an incredibly difficult time for all our partners, and clearly a difficult time to establish a new organisation with big ambitions.

During my final weeks at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals, after seven years as chair, I asked a Care Group Manager what he thought I should include in my final contribution to our staff newsletter. He was very clear: he advised that as well as recognising the current challenges, I should share an optimistic view for the future, reassurance that the leadership had a plan for the future and hope that we will move to a better place. Establishing our ICS, and in particular my own role, I am minded that there is fine balance between the difficult here-and-now and describing a future vision for our health and care system founded on openness, partnership and shared values and understanding.

As we tread this line, my thanks go to the many people who have willingly given me their time – to listen to their aspirations, to share their ambitions for their work and their contributions, and to educate me in the work of our wider system. My grateful thanks to all of them.

Sue Symington

Designate Chair: Humber, Coast and Vale Health & Care Partnership