THE chief executive of Glasgow-based Health and Social Care Alliance has said Nicola Sturgeon will have trenchant comments to make when she delivers a lecture on October 27.

"We are delighted she is going to be using that occasion to set out agenda items for the nation,” said Ian Welsh.

The First Minister will give the Health and Social Care Academy’s inaugural lecture, in partnership with the University of the West of Scotland and The Herald. The event in Edinburgh is part of the work of the Alliance, creating a space for debate about the process of health and social care integration.

“The First Minister has been a big supporter of the Alliance since she was health secretary," said Mr Welsh, a former local councillor in his home town of Prestwick, who moved up the ranks to become leader of Kyle and Carrick Council and South Ayrshire Council and was voted into the Scottish Parliament in the first election in 1999.

He moved to the Health and Social Care Alliance after 10 years with international charity the Rehab Group. It was a perfect fit for a number of reasons.

“My wife had a cerebral haemorrhage 25 years ago, so I was interested in the impact of long-term illness or conditions. My son was disabled (after a diagnosis of cerebral palsy), and my wife and I were unpaid carers. Although I have been involved in local authority work through being an elected member, the health side was a contingent interest. It was a new world for me. I had been around local authority work in a range of ways, but the workings of the health system I was uncited on and that has been an eye opener,” he said.

“The health service is the single largest spend in the Scottish budget, it has such a mammoth impact on local economies through its workforce. Even in the current Scottish context it is the nearest thing we have, for me, to the legacy of post-war Britain. When people put up that flag in 1947, the NHS in public ownership, it still represents all that is good about public service and personal outcomes for individuals. It is a complicated beast.”

The national third sector intermediary for a range of health and social care organisations, The Alliance has more than 1400 members including national support providers as well as local volunteer-led groups and people who are disabled or providing unpaid care. It plays a key role as NHS and social care funds in Scotland are integrated, a process fundamental to how the Scottish Government might deal with the growing elderly population.

“The challenge will be the political will to address some of the blockages and how you transfer resource from where it currently resides, largely in the hospital world, back into community-based settings. The proof of the pudding will be in the action planning the next Government puts in place to address those issues,” he says.

Health and Social Care Academy inaugural lecture with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, October 27.