What is JIT?

The Joint Improvement Team (JIT) was established in late 2004 to work directly with local health and social care partnerships across Scotland. Partnership working has come a long way over the last decade and particularly over the last couple of years. There is now a consensus that effective partnership working is essential in order to design, develop and deliver personal services for those requiring support and assistance to optimise their independence and happiness.

What does JIT do?

Our main focus is to provide practical support and additional capacity to partnerships so that we can help address the issues and challenges they face. The ultimate goal is to deliver better health and social care services to those who need them. We know that all partnerships are continuously striving to improve services, and here’s how we can help:

  • We provide direct, hands-on support over an extended period of time through our intensive support programmes. These are voluntary, collaborative programmes with partnerships that focus on specific issues and challenges, such as delayed discharge or governance and management.
  • We encourage and facilitate shared learning and good practice and we give partnerships the opportunity to share their experiences and seek advice via our online discussion forum.
  • We give advice and help find answers to your queries – contact us by phone or through our web site and we'll try to help or we'll put you in touch with someone who can.
  • We support service developments in key action areas by working with a small number of partnerships on specific projects and using the outcomes to support wider developments across the country. Some of our current work includes our housing with care initiative (working jointly with organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Housing, Communities Scotland and ADSW); user and carer involvement to support performance management measurements; development of a managed care network approach in Lanarkshire; the National Telecare Development Programme, and more.

We work on a voluntary basis with partnerships to achieve real, sustainable improvements that suit local needs. We aim to work together to find practical solutions that translate into positive outcomes for patients, users and carers. JIT is not an inspection or audit team; we act as a “critical friend” to partnerships.

JIT is co-sponsored by the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and NHS Scotland. Our core team is based in Edinburgh in the Scottish Government Health Department, but we work directly with partnerships across the country.

National priorities and local needs

One of our key aims is to balance national priorities with local needs, with the ultimate focus being better outcomes for service users and their carers. We work with health boards, local authorities, voluntary organisations, service users and carers, other Scottish Government departments, and related public sector organisations. We understand that national policy objectives and legislative frameworks need to work at a local level, and we can help this happen through supportive, collaborative programmes.

National Outcomes for Joint Working