IAN WELSH
IAN WELSH on an important challenge facing Scottish society
How do we construct a healthier, fairer Scotland? How do we foster the power of communities to make our health and wellbeing better? These are the type of questions the Scottish Government is currently asking of people across the country through a series of national conversations on issues like health and social care, social justice, employability. With less than a year to go before the next Scottish Parliament election, we at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the Alliance) see these discussions as an opportunity for people who live with long-term conditions, disabled people and unpaid carers to influence what happens next.
Our manifesto for the next five years, formulated with our 1,200 members, aims to strike a balance between the need to prevent issues before they arise, creating a socially just Scotland and ensuring the voice of lived experience is well heard.
One concerning theme to which our members keep returning is the waning level of social connectedness and its impact on Scotland’s health. Earlier this year the Scottish Parliament’s health and sport committee received evidence from a range of organisations, reinforced by numerous academic studies, that social isolation contributed to the development of depression and a range of other conditions.
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