Abstract
Background: South Ayrshire has a rapidly aging population with one of the highest dependency ratios in the world (reaching 88% by 2040). Traditional health and care models are no longer sustainable. South Ayrshire HSCP is working with communities to radically transform supports and improve outcomes.
Audience: The workshop is aimed at those who plan, commission and deliver health and care services and are looking to engage meaningfully with people throughout that process.
Approach: We will share our experience of empowering communities to move from passive engagement to active participation and leadership in developing ideas, implementing changes, refining improvements, providing oversight and measuring impact at a population and locality level and engage the audience in an appreciative inquiry into the approaches that they have used to engage communities to successfully transform upstream supports. Our Learning Disability Strategy was developed in partnership with our Learning Disability Community during 2021. A “League of Champions” was formed, made up of service users and carers to oversee the development and delivery of the strategy that emphasised health and wellbeing, choice and control, living independently and active citizenship. The strategy was delivered one year ahead of schedule thanks to the drive of the League of Champions. Taking the learning from this strategy we have taken the same approach in developing other strategies. Most recently in partnership with our third sector, we engaged over 150 older people through Champions Boards to drive the development of our multi-agency Ageing Well Strategy and “cultural movement” that aims to create places, spaces and communities that enable people to thrive into older age. In addition to these population level approaches we have engaged communities through a range of methods to develop Locality Plans. These locality plans aim to tailor service delivery and oversight to 6 distinct localities.
Outcomes: As a result of our approach we have delivered:
- voluntary and paid work for those with a learning disability.
- new accessible housing developments that will support people to stay independent into older age.
- private businesses providing seats and access to toilets for older people on the high-street.
- access to health and care services through mobile library vans in remote and rural communities.
We are working with two Universities to support the evaluation of our work and the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities is providing an independent evaluation of the impact of our Learning Disability Strategy including our approach to engagement.