Last Friday, 16 February 2024, Manx Care Advice and Liaison Service (MCALS) hosted their first Collaboration Day at the National Sports Centre in Douglas.
The event ran from 10am until 3pm and was attended by over 40 organisations including Health and Social Care charities, departments from Manx Care and Government sectors that are able to support the community with their health and wellbeing.
The event saw a consistent flow of service users throughout the day, who were able to discuss and learn about what service each of the exhibitors provide. It was also an opportunity for organisations that hadn’t crossed paths previously to network and gather awareness of where they can signpost people too.
MCALS is a confidential service that aims to improve patient and service user experience by helping to sort problems out quickly, providing advice and pointing people in the right direction to get the help they need, including referrals into the organisations that attended Collaboration Day.
Rachel Douglas, MCALS Service Lead, said:
‘Our first Collaboration Day had a high turnover of service users attending, which was great to see and validated our health and social care event. This means that we will be able to host further events in future and expand by inviting more services into the fold. We understand that there is still a number of health and wellbeing organisations on the Island that we are unaware of and are moving forward with the intention of eventually capturing all of them in one place.’
Manx Care’s Experience and Engagement Lead, Karen Maddox, added:
‘The day was an excellent opportunity not only for the community to come and speak face-to-face to the organisations that can help them or a loved one, but also a chance for the different departments to network amongst themselves. We are very pleased to report that we have had some fantastic feedback from both exhibitors and attendees and look forward to hosting future events and getting more people involved.’
