Tackling health board’s challenges for patients
Plan of action The speaker at Strathaven Rotary Club’s latest meeting was NHS Lanarkshire chair Neena Mahal.
Neena has a background in public service – she qualified as a careers adviser before working in a number of education-related roles and she served as a volunteer on various public bodies before becoming a non-executive director with the region’s health board.
Four-and-a-half years ago, she was chosen to take on the key role of chair of that important body, an organisation that has a budget of £1.2 billion and is charged with overseeing the health needs of 650,000 people.
“The job description said three days a week,”said Neena, “but in practice it’s a full-time job.” So what exactly is the job? “I’m there to represent the users,”she said, before adding: “I’m a user myself.”
Neena explained that the over-arching aim as she saw it was to help the citizens of Lanarkshire to live healthy, independent and fulfilling lives in a home or, at worst, home-like setting. The health service was having to operate in a time of great change – new drugs and new methods of treatment were transforming what was possible.
However, an ageing population and other demographic changes meant that pressures on services were continually increasing.
The key, she explained, was to always try to put the patient at the heart of everything that they did, and she gave a few examples of what she meant.
Among these were piloting ‘open all hours’visiting at Wishaw General Hospital; making sure that welcome boards at all NHS facilities gave clear information about who was who; placing greater emphasis on listening to (and acting upon) patient feedback; a new‘My Care Plan’procedure for mental health patients.