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Qualifying Care: new report launched at Workforce Matters event

Today (28 March 2019), Scottish Care launched a new report at a Workforce Matters event in Glasgow.

The report, titled ‘Qualifying Care: An Exploration of Social Care Registration Qualifications in Scotland’, is based on survey data collected from Scottish Care member services across adult social care (care homes, care at home & housing support services) in early 2019.

It explores different aspects and stages of achieving registrable qualifications (largely SVQs), as required as part of SSSC registration of the workforce, as well as post-registration training and learning (PRTL) requirements.

The report finds:

  • More than half of all front line workers are yet to begin their qualifications
  • There is a diverse approach to how qualifications are funded and provided across the country, but there is an accessibility issue in terms of funding for older workers
  • 20% of care homes and 18% of home care services have had to suspend employees due to not achieving qualifications in the allocated time
  • Nearly a third of home care and a quarter of care home services have experienced staff leaving employment and citing SVQ requirements as a reason

You can follow the event and discussions on the report on Twitter at #qualifyingcare

To read the report, click here.

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Compassion – Guest blog from the Care Inspectorate

I am part of a group of people in the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council taking forward work to develop a resource exploring compassion, we are partnering with colleagues and stakeholders from many organisations across Scotland. We are currently putting out a call to gather stories of compassion and kindness from people experiencing care and from those working in social care. We hope to start a national conversation, to be inspired and moved, we want to show how compassion is more than often given without recognising it for what it is, but for those on the receiving end it is central to how they perceive their care. Over the coming months we will be sharing stories through social media which will contribute to a resource which will highlight the importance of compassionate care. We might also bust some of the myths around how we relate to people who experience care as well as how we care for ourselves and our colleagues.

Whenever I hear providers and the frontline workforce speak about the work they do and what brought them into social care in the first place I am often struck by the level of compassion they have without them necessarily realising this. Compassion often comes to life through the relationships we have with people around us.  When these relationships are based on empathy, respect and dignity, compassion is given and received.  The impact when we reach out to the people around us with compassion and kindness often goes further than we may ever be aware of.

Compassion can be given in the briefest of moments, with a smile or reassuring touch.  We want to explore why sometimes compassion has been missing, as well as some of the beliefs and myths that people have about the caring relationship.  Compassion may come easier when we have a natural connection to a person or situation that we find ourselves in, but what about when there is disagreement and tension?  This is when we are asked to show compassion and kindness unconditionally.

There is a place for compassion in every aspect of our lives, in the way we support and care for people, how we get along with our co-workers and most definitely if we manage people, how we do that. Importantly there is also the way in which we show compassion to ourselves, it can be difficult to be compassionate to those around us when we are running on empty ourselves.

The Health and Social Care Standards have compassion as one of the five underpinning principles and they described what should be expected by those experiencing care and support.

Compassion

  • I experience warm, compassionate and nurturing care and support.
  • My care is provided by people who understand and are sensitive to my needs and my wishes.

We are keen to hear about compassion across all age ranges and service types and if you have a story of compassion to share with us please send it to [email protected]

 

Heather Edwards

Interim Head of Improvement Support Care Inspectorate

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The Inequity of Social Care – the latest blog from our CEO

The inequity of social care I’ve spent a lot of my professional life working in areas to challenge and address inequity and inequality. Indeed since I took over the role of CEO of Scottish Care a great deal of my focus has been on highlighting the challenges of unequal treatment in older people’s care and support. That has included the very real funding imbalance which has over time seen less and less proportionately allocated to resource older people care whether in the community or in care homes. But increasingly I believe that there is an overarching inequity at the heart of our health and social care policy and practice. At its centre is a critical question. Put simply what defines a support or service as social care and therefore currently chargeable and what defines a condition or illness as a health condition whose treatment and support is free at the point of delivery? I was reminded of this when I listened this week to a presentation from Alzheimer Scotland on their Fair Dementia Care campaign Alzheimer Scotland has recently published a report from the Fair Dementia Care Commission chaired by former First Minister Henry McLeish. At the heart of the report is a description of the life experience of thousands of our fellow Scots who live with or support someone living with advanced dementia. A number which is due to grow significantly in the coming years. As well as offering a definition of what is meant by advanced dementia the report highlights the confusing and complex maze of charging policies for social care services across Scotland’s local authorities which end up meaning that people with advanced dementia pay a staggering £50.9 million in care costs every year. The report does not call for the end of charging per se but for greater transparency, consistency and understanding. But I think one of its greatest services has been to shine a light on the inequity of social care and health in Scotland today. In the dictionary inequity is defined as ‘a lack of fairness or justice.’ Whilst the report from Alzheimer Scotland rightly highlights the inequity faced by people living with dementia I believe the inequity or lack of fairness goes even further. At root is it fair that if in life you are struck down with a life limiting cancer that you will receive your care and support free of charge but if you are someone living with dementia you will face charges for social care which might include disposing of your home and assets in order to pay for care home fees? Is it fair and right that many people living with neurological conditions are treated as having social care needs and not primarily health and clinical needs? I think not. We have too many individuals living with conditions such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Multiple Sclerosis and so on who are paying for the essential support that enables them to continue to live and contribute as citizens in our communities. Is it fair that a person who suffers the ill health that arises from frailty and age and requires appropriate support for that should have to pay over and above their lifetime contributions to taxation for that care including nursing care? Just as Scotland is seeking to create a rights-based social security system I am convinced that we need to seriously start a debate about the inequity, the lack of fairness and justice that lies at the heart of social care charging for specific conditions such as advanced dementia. But I am equally convinced that we need to go much further and start the conversation to move us to enshrining the human right to social care, to have your care and support provided equitably regardless of the condition or illness or disease, regardless of the realities of age or decline, that life deals you. In the words of Bill Gates: “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.” Dr Donald Macaskill @DrDMacaskill

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Fair Work in Scotland’s Social Care Sector 2019

The Fair Work Convention has published its report Fair Work in Scotland’s Social Care Sector 2019

Scottish Care participated in the work of the Commission during the research that informed this report through Strathclyde University.

Scottish Care CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill said:

“As a member of the Commission, Scottish Care welcomes the broad conclusions of the Fair Work Commission’s report and we wholeheartedly support any work that seeks to drive forward human rights and equality in relation to the social care workforce.

 

“The research on fair work undertaken by Strathclyde University and the Commission’s own work highlight that the major issue for fair work in social care is the way in which we as a country continue to purchase and commission care.  The model we have currently is profoundly disempowering for the worker and profoundly negative for terms and conditions.

 

“We are not critical of the concept of supporting the worker’s voice but to do so within a system that still purchases care by the minute, that treats people in a very transactional way in relation to commissioning, that prioritises getting more for less and which continues to devalue social care work, means that this voice in reality is a voice in silence.

 

“We are not going to sufficiently advance fair work if we don’t change the system.  To achieve fairness in the workplace, we need fairness in social care contracts.

 

“Scottish Care is also concerned that where providers have sought to transform the way in which care is delivered by creating self-led and self-managed teams, that such empowering of the frontline worker has been resisted and under-resourced.

 

“In its own structures Scottish Care seeks to ensure that there is a mandatory front line worker voice contributing to debate and policy formation. This has led us to focus on areas of particular importance to the workforce such as worker mental health support, support for bereavement, and more focus on equipping the workforce in particular skills relating to dementia and palliative and end of life care.

 

“It is a matter of real sadness to us that resources for equipping the workforce through learning and development are continually depleted and reduced in contracts. Again, we believe we will not reform the social care workforce until we change the broken system which continues to seek to purchase care on the cheap.”

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Latest blog from our CEO: Recognising Care

There is nothing quite like a young child running towards you carrying a paper certificate with ‘Gold Star Achievement’ written across it as they express great joy at their latest success. Recognition is fundamental to our life and to us gaining a sense of belonging and being valued. It can come in many different guises from the child with a gold star, to the affirmation of parents, the acceptance of friends to the thanks of grateful colleagues.

Yet anyone who has been involved in the care sector for any length of time will doubtless be more than aware that the work of social care is rarely valued and infrequently recognised in the way that it should be. Whether it is a pay that truly values the amazing professionalism or terms and conditions that treat the job of care as fundamental – all too often the sense of positive recognition and regard from a society that depends on good care seems to be missing.

So thank goodness for the Scottish Care at Home and Housing Support Awards.

There are tens of thousands of women and men working up and down in Scotland’s care at home and housing support services who are delivering amazing support and care which is literally life-changing and life-affirming. We have amazing examples of innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the independent care sector. The problem is we often don’t talk about it, we rarely celebrate what we are good at, and too infrequently value those whose work is exemplary.

There are many reasons why you should consider nominating someone you know or a project or piece of work you have come across or are involved with for these awards and the first is that the chances are that unless you do it no-one else is going to.

Unless you take some time to fill out the nomination then the great project which has meant that people are more engaged in their communities; the home care worker who goes that extra mile in supporting families facing the distress of living with dementia; the worker who has changed the way in which people who require support because of a disability or mental health condition are included by their local communities – all of them will remain in the shadow and their story, their inspiration, the example of their excellence will go unrecognised and unheard.

Social care is all about people – and usually the self-same people who make a difference to so many of our lives – are unassuming and want to remain in the background. The Scottish Care Awards are your chance to help to shine a light on excellence, on practice that is more than ordinary, and workers that deserve affirmation and recognition.

So tell their story and be their voice and get nominating today.