Connecting the Health System

General manager for planning and funding with Canterbury District Health Board Carolyn Gullery explains how the city’s healthcare workers responded so quickly and effectively to last year’s devastating earthquake. “The transition towards a more integrated way of working was already underway,” Gullery says. “New initiatives and plans were in place and working relationships were being strengthened to address the more everyday challenges of an ageing population, outdated facilities and increasing demand. Our vision in Canterbury is for a connected health system, centred around people, where ‘the whole system needs to be working for the whole system to work’.” Gullery will be presenting at the NHS Confederation conference on 21 June in Manchester.