Harnessing the power of partnership to deliver better health services
Our partnership, embodied in our Integrated Care System, will be measured by its ability to successfully work closely together, across all sectors, to provide and improve health and care services for all those we serve.
Our partnership includes social care provided by local authorities, acute services provided by our acute hospitals, mental health services from our mental health trusts, community services where care is provided closer to home, primary care in local communities and a host of crucial services provided by the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE). We are at our very best when we work together, and the beneficiaries are those we serve.
Under extraordinary pressure, our services and service providers must look to each other for support, for joint action and for ways to work ever more closely together. This is the very spirit of partnership, and from it we will gain strength.
The role of Chair allows me a privileged opportunity to meet with partners across all areas of health and social care, and to see for myself the challenges we face and the benefits we achieve through joint working. Recent travels have taken me to the Emergency Departments in Hull and York, to meet with the governing body at North Lincolnshire and Goole, to talk with business leaders in Hull, to learn more about a VCSE mental health partnership in York, and to Whitby where I met residents as they celebrated the formal opening of the newly modernised Whitby Hospital (shortlisted for an award from The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors).
It is the case that everywhere I go, everyone I meet, supports our NHS and is absolutely committed to its ongoing future and success.
We will achieve this shared ambition by working together through true partnership.
Sue Symington