Dr Jo-Etienne Abela, minister for active ageing in Malta, visited a number of sites across Lanarkshire as part of his trip to understand how integrated care for older people is delivered.
Dr Abela, a consultant surgeon specialised in upper gastrointestinal and pancreatic operations, trained in Scotland, including spending a year at University Hospital Monklands, before returning home to Malta.
Professor Anne Hendry, director for the international centre for integrated care and former consultant physician in geriatric medicine, said: “It was a pleasure to welcome Dr Jo-Etienne Abela for a short visit to meet with staff from NHS Lanarkshire and north and south health and social care partnerships who are working together to prevent and manage frailty.
“Our respective health and care systems are a similar size and serve a mix of rapidly ageing urban and rural communities.
“We exchanged insights on acute care, discharge to assess at home, Hospital at Home, bed based intermediate care, care home liaison and technology enabled care.
“The minister also met with the University of the West of Scotland principal and Soumen Sengupta, director of health and social care for South Lanarkshire. We discussed our shared ambition to build a workforce fit for an ageing population and to undertake collaborative research, innovation and knowledge exchange going forward.”
Dr Caroline McInnes, clinical lead for older people services, added: “It was great to have Dr Abela visit our bed base at Carrickstone and a real opportunity to showcase the work done across NHS Lanarkshire in supporting adults with frailty in a setting close to home, and explore how we deliver this in the Cumbernauld area.
“It was additionally nice to be able to get our senior trainee Dr Clayton Micallef to meet Dr Abela, as Clayton is also from Malta!”
