In an interview with us ahead of the 2024 VHS Annual Conference, Tejesh Mistry talked of the need for third sector organisations delivering support and services on the ground across Scotland to be treated as equal partners in realising the ambitions for a healthier country.
There is perhaps no mystery behind why so many organisations feel they are third in line after the NHS and councils when it comes to funding. Much of it is simply down to who has the statutory delivery responsibilities in health and social care, combined with political decisions on how big the overall budget is.
What is a mystery to me is that our political leaders do not appear to fully appreciate the risk in what Tejesh describes: third sector organisations having to cope with very short-term funding, very late confirmations of funding, uncertainty, and unrealistic expectations placed on trustees, managers and volunteers.
How might that change?
VHS is making the case direct to the Scottish Government, and it is not a lone voice.
And the more voices there are, calmly explaining the challenges and sharing a vision of what could be achieved if the sector were to be given the opportunity to do more of what it does best, the more likely politicians will be to appreciate your work in the run up to the election in 2026.
Writing news releases and blogs and doing interviews may be pushed down the priorities list by the immediate challenges of your everyday working and volunteering lives – but that media stuff can make you new allies and advocates and can help make our very media-savvy governments pause and think.
VHS gives you a united voice. Platforms like healthandcare.scot give you an opportunity to talk about what you do.
Because you – Scotland’s third sector providers of health, care, support and wellbeing – know exactly what you do, what difference you make and what the consequences would be if you, for whatever reason, were no longer able to do it.
And that makes you powerful.
You have legitimacy when you suggest what could and should be done better, when you come together and share that vision and explain the value it would add.
Perhaps create a shared strategy that sets out how to deliver that change.
Start at the end: what outcome do you want to see? What process or behaviour will be different?
Then you can work backwards, identifying the evidence you will need to draw together to make the case for change, who can make that change, and how you’ll use the evidence to persuade them.
Without a cohesive vision of what needs to be different, the other pieces will not magically fall into place.
You cannot start by saying you want to have a National Care Service, for instance, if you cannot articulate what tangible difference that will make to people who are cared for.
And, the fact that plans for a National Care Service are still in flux creates an opportunity. Now, because the local councils have decided they no longer want to be involved, the third sector is no longer third.As representatives from social care organisations told the parliament earlier this month, the councils’ decision opens the way to ‘the real experts’ having a seat at the care service policy table.Finally, an unabashed advert: we need your stories. Get in touch with us at editorial@healthandcare.scot
John Macgill, Publisher healthandcare.scot
