Highland Council agrees to change NHS Highland’s health board model
Highland councillors have agreed to change NHS Highland’s health board structure.
The Highland health board was unique in its adoption of a lead agency model, which gave different powers to each authority.
Councillors have now voted to change this to a body corporate model which follows the lead of other health boards in Scotland.
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Currently, Highland Council and NHS Highland work together, with decisions on policy taken by the ‘lead agency’.
The council runs children’s health and social care services and NHS Highland manages adult health and social care, an agreement created in 2012.
The recommendations were brought forward after legislation plans for Scotland’s National Care Service planned to integrate some services to a national level.
David Park, deputy chief executive of NHS Highland, said: “We recognise that as legislation moves and as reform is required across health and social care, having a model that is different from the rest of Scotland makes additional complications to that.”
Leader of the opposition at the council, Alasdair Christie said: “It’s no use being an outlier with a model when the challenges are as severe as ours, because everyone just says it’s because of the lead agency model.
“So I think we’ve got to move away from it. If we do it correctly… the consumers of the service are not going to notice the difference.”
Councillor Ryan MacKintosh asked why this was progressing despite the national care service bill being “dead in the water”.
Council leader Raymond Bremner responded: “The reason we are looking at this is because we have to, It’s as simple as that.
“We can’t stay where we are as a Highland area. We have to move that forward now, as a necessity.”
Councillor Muriel Cockburn said: “I think it’s an opportunity to change and improve our services.
“We all are very aware of the criticism, the demand and the lack of capacity that we’ve got.
“We are not enabling enough of our residents in our communities to stay home.”
Councillor David Gregg said: “It still feels on the frontline health service that we are sometimes a little bit siloed between the community services and services in the acute end.
“I hope that the integration model may help to improve things further.”
