10 June - Mental Health Network - governance during the COVID-19 pandemic - webinar

This week’s meeting was joined by Lord Victor Adebowale, Chair of the NHS Confederation, who discussed the upcoming NHS legislation, the importance of getting population health right and the changing role of system leadership.

Overheard during the webinar:

“Most of the determinants of health lie beyond the NHS, so relationships with local authorities and the importance of securing social care funding settlement are paramount. I’d like reassurance that the NHS Confed will advocate and lobby on behalf of social care, and the importance of collaboration between housing, employment and education etc. Population health will only be achieved by collaborating with others.”

“The NHS has a significant role to play in local areas, as an employer etc, and this will need to inform the perspectives of systems. Population health needs to be understood effectively so that systems can be developed in a way that reflects the ecosystem of health provision, and the importance of partnerships and collaboration with relevant organisations. This is also relevant to race dynamics, which all areas will have, and the costs of failing to deliver for all people in a community is shocking. System leadership is understanding this and asking questions to ensure an individual patient gets the benefit of this understanding.”

“There is only one mandated seat on the ICS board, and I think it will be difficult for anyone other than the largest acute trust to take that seat. Alongside this there may be a weakening of the commissioning and primary care voice within the system, and I hope that he [Victor Adebowale] can help represent the membership to ensure those skills remain in the systems.”

“I'd like to emphasise the importance of seeing the potential role of mental health trusts as moving resources into different areas, and not getting fixated on the direct clinical services needed. When mental health has been done well it has role-modelled different ways of working, and it will be important to think how we can do that now within the system and shows that we are investing in partner organisations too, especially when it leads to better value for money and outcomes. This approach would set mental health leaders up as serious players in the system and focused on improving population health, not on securing more funding for their own organisations.”

These meetings are by invitation only. For further details, visit our events page.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about these webinars, please contact: events@good-governance.org.uk