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Interview with John Macgill about the stress on carers in the second pandemic lockdown and access to small grants to provide some respite.

An interview with Dorothy Grace Elder, voluntary secretary of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Chronic Pain, with John Macgill

healthandcare.scot’s John Macgill speaks to the health and social care spokesperson for the local government organisation COSLA, Councillor Stuart Currie

John Macgill talks with Sandra MacLeod, Chief Officer of Aberdeen Health and Social Care Partnership on the introduction of a self managing leadership model.

The Abbeyfield movement is seeking to equip itself for the future and determined to offer the option of sheltered homes in local communities for people who may no longer want to stay in their own homes but do not need to move into a care home. Last week its umbrella organisation Abbeyfield Societies in Scotland held its annual conference and AGM in Dunfermline. Healthandcare.scot was at the conference as media partner. Publisher John Macgill spoke to two trustees who, between them, have approaching seventy years of service to their local communities:

Listen in to Davie Donaldson giving an insight into life as a traveller in today’s Scotland, and the legacy of transgenerational trauma affecting a community whose experience of the sharp end of health inequalities remains among the worst in the country. To try and tackle issues like lower life expectancy and higher than average rates of poor mental health, Mr Donaldson explains why community empowerment and an acknowledgement and understanding of the past is essential to ensure a brighter future for Scotland’s travellers.

Going to the beach is one of life's simple pleasures, but it is inaccessible for many people with disabilities. The latest podcast from healthandcare.scot explores the work of an inspiring charity making specialist beach wheelchairs available in Scotland - and how it can be a life-changing experience.    

An interview with Marilyn Edmond the Scottish filmmaker whose film Connect tells the story of a man battling mental illness and seeks to confront the issue of suicide amongst young men.

Chair of the latest Scotland Policy Conferences seminar – next steps for integration in health and social care – Rhoda Grant, Labour MSP and member of the carers’ cross-party group, joined healthandcare.scot to discuss the nature of caring in Scotland. As Scotland’s population ages and the need for paid and unpaid carers increases, Ms Grant reflects on the importance of ensuring the right support systems are in place so that carers are kept involved at every stage, particularly if an individual ends up in hospital.

A Scottish campaigning organisation says there has been a sea-change in the technology available for people with diabetes since it was founded a decade ago – but too few Scots are benefitting. IPAG was formed to raise awareness of the opportunities for people with Type 1 diabetes to replace regular injections of insulin with portable pumps. As pumps were becoming more advanced, the technology for monitoring a person’s blood glucose levels was also moving from testing finger-prick blood droplets to getting constant readouts from continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices – with the option for some of linking both monitoring and pumps into an automated closed loop. The group’s chair Mary Moody has been telling healthandcare.scot’s John Macgill about the daily challenge of managing diabetes

Ahead of the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland annual conference 2019, we spoke to three people who have been instrumental in establishing a group that uses singing to help Glasgow residents breathe a little easier.  Now under the umbrella of the Cheyne Gang, PhD student Sophie Boyd, practice nurse Janice Paterson and community links practitioners Deborah Hamilton, have been running singing sessions for individuals suffering from breathlessness – something which can stem from a variety of conditions, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or anxiety.

At the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh's Quality Governance Conference, we caught up with Susanna Stanford - a passionate advocate of the need for patients to be able to feedback on their care, and for clinicians to be able to respond.  Having experienced a spinal anaesthetic failing eight years ago, Ms Stanford's discovery that there was no established route through which she could give feedback on the standard of care she received, led her on a journey to champion more adequate communication and collaboration between clinicians and their patients.