Health and Wellbeing Programme Director Whole of Government MOVEment Healthy Ireland – Let’s MOVE! Future Health Summit 27 May 2016 Kate O’Flaherty Health and Wellbeing Programme Director Department of Health

Whole of Government MOVEment: What is it? And why do it? Whole of Government or Whole System approaches a.k.a Joined-up Working Government Departments (and other partners) work together on critical societal issues or ‘wicked’ problems that one sector alone cannot address Healthy Ireland as example – improving health and wellbeing outcomes through tackling social and environmental determinants (not just health factors)

Whole of Government MOVEment: How do we it? What does it take? Structures? Helpful but not sufficient alone … whole of government MOVEment about ‘way of working’ … therefore needs: Mandate Leadership Supportive culture … for collaborative working

Whole of Government MOVEment: All About Collaboration

Whole of Government MOVEment: All About Collaboration Communication and relationships Shared vision on goals and outcomes Trust Focussed on solutions Flexibility and openness Understanding different perspectives Skillset … networking … need to be a (boundary) spanner

Whole of Government MOVEment: The challenges Working … horizontally in a vertical system Balancing …. short-term pressures v long-term goals Changing …. culture, behaviour, ways of working Avoiding … (health) ‘imperialism’ / language important Linking … policy and implementation (and top-down with bottom-up)

Whole of Government MOVEment: Healthy Ireland Joint projects underway with range of Departments including … D/ Education and Skills (Wellbeing in schools) D/ Children and Youth Affairs (Giving children best start in life – focus on prevention and early intervention) D/Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Healthy Workplaces) D/ ..Local Government (Healthy Cities & Counties)

Whole of Government MOVEment: Now is good Climate of public sector reform Wider recognition of need for greater integration to achieve broader societal aims Increasing emphasis on ‘prevention and early intervention’ and ‘health and wellbeing’ Citizens expect it (and want to be part of it)

Whole of Government MOVEment: Some final thoughts Our challenges are not unique to Ireland … however unique opportunity to develop solutions Same principles apply for ‘cross-sectoral’ working Biggest job = joining the dots Priority focus = building (and maintaining) relationships … and keeping things moving

Thanks for listening @HealthyIreland healthyireland@health.gov.ie www.healthyireland.ie @HealthyIreland