{"id":386879,"date":"2025-08-31T09:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T09:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386879\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T09:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T09:09:10","slug":"edinburgh-charity-threatens-legal-action-over-health-boards-strategic-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386879\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh charity threatens legal action over health board’s strategic plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Edinburgh charity could take the body responsible for the commissioning of integrated health and social care services in the city to court.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ripple Project, which runs a stalwart community hub in the Restalrig area, believes the approval of a strategic plan until 2028 for the Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board (EIJB) is unlawful.<\/p>\n

A decision on the framework was made at a meeting in June and comes as the body admits it will have to make significant cost saving measures in the coming years to remain sustainable.<\/p>\n

Rachel Green, the charity\u2019s director, believes the consultation process fell short of minimum requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are rules and guidelines around consultation processes,\u201d she told STV News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be done for 12 weeks, and all of the responses should be carefully considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also, under the Public Bodies Act, a requirement for integration joint boards to have a focus on prevention and to reduce inequalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ripple Project believes those things didn\u2019t happen, and Ms Green says that raises questions about whether it was a \u201cfair and transparent process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charity now wants the consultation to be re-run and has sent a pre-action letter to the EIJB threatening a judicial review.<\/p>\n

A draft of the strategic plan from the board says it \u201caims to provide a clear and realistic indication of what we believe that we can achieve over the next three years\u201d.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging the board is in a \u201cfinancially unsustainable position\u201d the plan states \u201cthe IJB has already had to make some difficult decisions about what services it can and cannot afford to provide\u201d.<\/p>\n

Documents on the City of Edinburgh Council website, for the board\u2019s latest meeting, state that the draft medium-term financial strategy (MTFS) has outlined the need for significant savings.<\/p>\n

The documents state: \u201cAt the time of publication in March 2025, the MTFS identified a savings requirement of \u00a331m for 2025\/26, rising to \u00a387m by 2026\/27.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince this point, we have had to address further financial pressures, including an expansion of mental health capacity to address increased demand, ongoing high levels of cost in acute \u2018set aside\u2019 services, care home closures and slippage in delivery of block contract savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the potential knock-on impact that could be felt by charities because of the strategy, Ms Green told STV News: \u201cWhat they do is drive resources, and they drive services.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a strategy that does not put people first or does not put prevention first will have a knock-on effect to communities, especially like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the EIJB said: \u201cWe confirm that the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board has received a pre-action letter and will respond directly to the Ripple Project.\u201d<\/p>\n

STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Edinburgh charity could take the body responsible for the commissioning of integrated health and social care services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-386879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115122599763846295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}