I was very privileged recently, to be asked to speak at the Healthcare Excellence Through Technology (HETT) conference back in September, where I joined James Freed (Chief Digital and Information Officer at Health Education England) on the Culture Excellence panel. This also included fellow speakers Anne Marie Cunningham (Associate Medical Director for Primary Care, Digital Health and Care Wales) and Joanna Fox (Managing Director at Medi-hr Ltd).

As part of SCW Spotlights, a programme of short and snappy webinar events, we put the spotlight on organisational development and asked ‘How is OD enabling everyday conversations to transform complex systems?' Our team explored how if your organisation isn’t considered to be a thing but a story inside people’s heads, how can you disrupt these stories to enable people to lead change themselves using a technique called dialogic OD. 

The Medicines Optimisation team at South, Central and West (SCW) has launched a Health and Justice Medicines Optimisation Network. Located on the FutureNHS platform, the regional peer support network is a shared platform for healthcare professionals working within the Health and Justice (H&J) setting in the South East region. 

NHS South, Central and West (SCW) will take responsibility for the Devon, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly (DCIOS), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) and Somerset Child Health Information Service (CHIS) from April 2023 after winning the tender for a five-year contract from NHS England South West. As the incumbents of BaNES, Gloucestershire, Swindon, and Wiltshire this means there will be a single standardised service of CHIS across almost the entire South West.

We’re taking part in a series of regional roadshows hosted by Public Policy Projects and the Integrated Care Journal. Each event will bring together health and care system leaders along with key stakeholders to debate the challenges and opportunities that integrated care creates for their localities.

Less than three months since they came into being formally, Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) are facing huge challenges. Across the south of England and the country, there are record waiting times for emergency and elective care and major difficulties with access to primary care and mental health services.

Leukaemia claims more lives than breast and prostate cancer every year, and blood cancers have a higher rate of emergency diagnosis than other cancer types, but the awareness of its symptoms amongst the public and community pharmacy teams remains low. 

Tamer Latif, Clinical Services Programme Lead, Medicines Optimisation at NHS South, Central and West (SCW), shares why he decided to bring his pharmacy experience to SCW.

More than ever, there is a greater emphasis on the ‘equivalence’ of care for detained individuals in secure environments. This includes the need for detained individuals to have access to community-equivalent healthcare services. One of these is the pharmacy service.