The first public meeting of the Dundee health and social care integration unit took place on Wednesday.
The board is a joint operation between Dundee City Council and NHS Tayside and came about after Scottish government legislation resulted in the integration of health and social care services across the country.
NHS Tayside explained that the integration of health and social care services with the councils of Perth and Kinross, Dundee and Angus will work “to ensure that people get the joined-up and seamless care and support they need” to live independently at home.
The meeting heard from members of Dundee Voluntary Action, who described the work that the Royal Volunteer Service provide in ensuring vulnerable people in the city are cared for in the days and weeks after a hospital visit.
The Royal Volunteer Service currently work with 37 individuals in Dundee and provide a total of 1546 hours of additional care provision.
The group works to ensure that thosewho are vulnerable- but still able to live at home- are catered for. A large proportion of those who require care are elderly.
Christina Cooper, project co-ordinator for Dundee Voluntary Action, said that the group worked with volunteers from a growing cross section of Dundee.
The Labour councillor for Coldside, Helen Wright, told The Courier that she had a lot of concerns about the integration of health and social care services in the city.
Councillor Wright noted that by only having three publicly elected officials on the newly established board, that accountability on behalf of the public could be overlooked.
She said: “I don’t think the new board is going to work and I have a lot of concerns about it.
“As an elected member of the council, my concerns are that the board will be unaccountable for local people or local decisions.
“There are only three elected councillors on the board and they are all male and all members of the SNP. There is a lack of balance.
“We fought the creation of a health and social care integration board in 1997 and won and we fought hard against the creation of this one, but we were eventually overruled.
“I would have asked them if the volunteers had been vetted and were suitable for the roles they were being asked to carry out.”