The ALLIANCE Health and Social Care Academy 2021 review

The Academy continued to work towards transformational change in health and social care.

During 2021, the Academy undertook a range of creative and innovative activity aimed at exploring key themes and their relationship to the Five Provocations for health and social care underpinned by a commitment to partnership working.

At the start of the year we delivered a creative workshop alongside Mind and Draw to explore courageous leadership as part of the Scottish Government Fire Starter Festival. The workshop offered the opportunity to think about what is required to realise courageous leadership across health and social care. You can read the event report here.

Climate change was identified as an area requiring radical and transformational change. To explore this theme further, the Academy hosted a panel discussion with Kathryn Dapre (NHS National Services Scotland) Karen Hedge (Scottish Care) and Susie Fitton (Inclusion Scotland) and chaired by Kat Jones (Stop Climate Chaos Scotland) as part of the ALLIANCE’s 2021 Digital Gathering.

In the run up to COP26, the Academy worked in partnership with Scottish Care to co-host a series of roundtables events aimed at exploring social care in a changing environment. These events recognised that the social care sector needs to be involved in supporting sustainability efforts as it is both affected by and contributes to climate change. Following the event we published a report outlining the key principles and actions required to develop a more sustainable sector.

During 2021, the Academy delivered a series of events in partnership with Disability Equality Scotland (DES) and Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) to introduce and explore the 20-minute neighbourhood concept. A key thread throughout events was to consider how neighbourhoods can be designed to be inclusive for everyone and uphold the rights of a range of groups including disabled people, people living with long term conditions and unpaid carers. This video summarises the events. Following the series, we were delighted to host a workshop in partnership with DES as part of the TIS National Housing Conference.

Stigma was identified as a recurring them and something that the Academy chose to focus on in partnership with the Self-Management and Reducing Gambling Harms Programmes. Cross-programme activity partnership resulted in two events as part of the Reducing Stigma, Emphasising Humanity series. Events explored different forms of stigma and solutions through the lens of lived experience.

This year also saw the refresh our Academy provocation paper on basic income Emphasising humanity and transforming livelihoods: basic income. This refresh was based on learning from our panel discussion event as part of the Basic Income Earth Network Congress 2021.

October saw the fourth event in the ‘Revisiting Beveridge’s ‘Five Giants’ in Scotland: Health and Homelessness’ series, as part of the RSA Health Network. We heard from speakers Mark Kelvin and Martin Boyle from Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness and international speaker Michelle Hoon from Salt Lake City about the experiences of homelessness and health from a city perspective.

We continued to support the work of the Early Intervention in Psychosis Lived Experience Reference group including in the development of a case study and the Public Health Scotland Weight Stigma/Bias Short Life Working Group.

The Academy also progressed work with Engender by hosting a roundtable to explore maternal health inequalities for BME women. As part of the ALLIANCE Annual conference 2021 we held a lecture with Dr Gwenetta Curry, University of Edinburgh and chaired by Dr Anna Black, Scottish Human Rights Commission to look at Covid-19, race and health inequalities.

The year culminated in the launch of our ‘Being Human’ human rights lecture series. The first event involved a keynote lecture by Rosemary Kayess, Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled People, and speakers from SCLD Human Rights Town App Development Group.

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