Exploring social care workforce innovation in the Highlands

Workforce Matters ran a workforce event for providers in Inverness on Wednesday 18th May. ‘Exploring Social Care Workforce Innovation in the Highlands’ proved to be a very successful event, with almost 40 providers attending.

We were delighted that colleagues from the SSSC, Care Inspectorate, Strathclyde University, Scottish Government and Bluebird Care joined us for the day, sharing relevant and interesting information with the group.

Despite providers facing extremely challenging times, there was a huge amount of innovative practice shared, and an enthusiasm for exploring different ways of working. We hope to run another event in the Highlands before the end of the year.

Fitness to Practise webinars

The SSSC are holding live and interactive webinars about the changes they are making to the Rules and Decisions Guidance.

This is an opportunity to find out more about the changes and ask questions about how they will work in practice. The free webinars will be hosted by Maree Allison, the Director of Fitness to Practise.  The SSSC will consider any comments made alongside the responses to the consultation

Click on the following link to sign up:

If you would like a paper copy of the consultation please email [email protected]

If you have any queries about the consultation please contact [email protected]

Ready for Registration?

The registration process for care at home and housing support services begins next year – 2017.  This will affect a large number of our member organisations.

To ensure that members feel supported and informed before and during this process, Workforce Matters is creating a ‘Ready for Registration?’ Working Group.  There was an initial discussion at the Scottish Care/SSSC Regulatory Forum meeting on the 14th June about how we can best support new registrants.  Part of this preparation process will also involve listening to the needs of care home organisations who have gone through the process, and now require to ensure their workforce continue their professional development.

There will be more information about getting involved in this forum on our website over the coming months.

We will be involving managers as well as front line support workers throughout this process.

For more information please contact Katharine Ross.

If you would like to become a member of the Scottish Care/SSSC Regulatory Forum that meets 3-4 times a year, please contact Katharine Ross.  We are always keen to welcome new members.

New Workforce Development consultant

Scottish Care is delighted to announce that Elaine MacMaster has joined Scottish Care as a Workforce Development Consultant, working within the Workforce Matters project.

Her role is to enhance and develop the skills, knowledge and professionalism of the workforce within the independent care sector alongside National Workforce Development Lead, Katharine Ross.

Elaine is a Registered Nurse who worked on the frontline in nursing for 7 years in the NHS and for a short time overseas. She worked in a variety of disciplines such as acute care, day surgery and in nursing homes.

After nursing on the frontline Elaine developed a keen interest in Human Resources and decided to embark upon a post graduate HR course becoming an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Her most recent role was HR Manager for a successful Private Home Care organisation based in Edinburgh – Aspen Hamilton Care Management.

While working as HR Manager Elaine was also keen to develop her knowledge within the Third Sector and to experience working at Board Level. She was a member on the Board of Care and Repair Edinburgh and latterly the Chair of the Board for 18 months.

Keen to see the Health and Social Care Workforce recognised and fully involved in the work they do, with a background in frontline NHS and also in Social Care, she is well equipped to do so.

Elaine lives in Edinburgh with her husband and two children, for whom she provides an excellent taxi service! Elaine enjoys all types of cycling especially mountain biking.

Elaine is keen to be of assistance to providers – please do not hesitate to contact her. Elaine’s contact details are available under the Workforce Matters Contact section.

End of Life & Palliative Care resources

Katharine Ross, Scottish Care’s Workforce Lead, was recently invited to speak at a Scotland Policy Conferences Keynote Seminar at the beginning of June.

The title of the event was  ‘Next steps for palliative and end of life care: access, delivery and integration.  

Katharine’s presentation is available here.  We hope this emphasises the importance of involvement and integrated co-production that Scottish Care place in the development of end of life and palliative care.

Scottish Care has recently been invited to participate in the development of end of life and palliative care learning and educational material.  Although this project is in the initial stages of development, we will soon be inviting Scottish Care members to engage in discussions with NES and SSSC.  More information will be coming out soon.

If this is an area you or your organisation would like to get involved in please contact Katharine directly – [email protected]

 

Bringing human rights home

Over the last nine months Scottish Care has published two human rights documents, the Convention on the Rights of Residents in Care Homes for Adults and Older People and two weeks ago at the annual Care at Home and Housing Support Conference, the Convention on the Rights of People receiving Care at Home and Housing Support Services. Both were products of collaborative work where individuals who used support services articulated their sense of what constituted for them basic rights and quality in service provision.

Nearly two decades ago the Human Rights Act incorporated the European Convention of Human Rights into domestic legislation enabling individuals if they felt that there had been a breach in their human rights to take their case to a local court without having to have recourse to a court distanced from them in Europe. The whole process was badged as ‘Bringing Rights Home.’

In some sense that is what both of the Scottish Care Conventions have sought to do. They have sought to bring ‘human rights’ into the homes of individuals who use social care support whether they live in residential care or in the wider community. They have sought to make human rights something which spoke to their needs and aspirations, something which was real rather than a set of abstract concepts used by the media and politicians to score cheap points in a debate. As one of the participants said:

‘Human rights are ours.’

The First Minister in a speech in the Pearce Institute in Govan in September 2015 in addressing attempts to repeal the Human Rights Act spoke of the need to see the Act as a floor rather than as a ceiling beyond which one could not go or aspire.

“When the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998, the intention was that the Convention would provide a floor for human rights across the UK. That’s because it would be incorporated within the domestic law of all nations of the UK – through the Human Rights Act, and the different devolution settlements.

But the Convention was always intended to be a floor, not a ceiling. Devolved governments have the flexibility to go further, if we choose. And so complying with the Convention should not be the limit of our ambitions.”

(First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Pearce Institute, Govan, 23 September, 2015)

The First Minister challenged civic and public society in Scotland to attempt to work together to achieve a context where human rights were at the heart of all we do in Scotland. In a small way the Conventions seek to contribute to that process.

The analogy of bringing rights home is a helpful one. To a considerable degree we have indeed brought rights home but I also suspect that we have kept human rights at the doorstep. Human rights have not entered into every room and corner of our ‘house of care’. We have, and are increasingly articulating the role human rights can play in the delivery of quality services which respect and enhance the dignity, voice and choice of those who use services and supports. The new National Care Standards will go a long way to embedding a rights-based approach to care. But if that is all we do – and that’s not to diminish that process – we will still be keeping human rights in one small room, a room about individual relationships and rights.

For human rights to mean more than just platitudinal rhetoric they have to infiltrate the whole of our health and social care system. Put simply you cannot have a human rights based approach to care and support without a human rights based approach to budgeting, to finance allocation and to commissioning.

It is all very well to require providers and those who work in care services to embed human rights at the heart of their work and services, but unless you have a system whereby human rights can direct the decisions we make about spending limited resources, and unless we change procurement processes to properly operate on a human rights basis then we are just tinkering with rights, we are just keeping human rights at the doorstep.

So at the Care at Home Conference we called upon our partners in Scottish Government and local authorities to work with us in building and developing a human rights based approach to commissioning and budgeting. We are partly there with good rights based procurement guidance, but we have a long way to go.

So what might such a model look like? Well it could perhaps be based on the widely recognised PANEL principles, which is an approach to what a human rights based approach means in practice. PANEL stands for Participation, Accountability, Non-Discrimination, Empowerment and Legality.

What might this mean for budgeting, procurement and commissioning?

 

Participation – People should be involved in decisions that affect their rights. So providers and those who use services should be key partners in strategic and local decision making, not informed or engaged in consultation after decisions have been made.

Accountability – There should be monitoring of how people’s rights are being affected, as well as remedies when things go wrong. If insufficient resource is allocated to enable an individual to be adequately supported then something is done to address this.

Non-Discrimination – Nobody should be treated unfairly because of their age, gender, ethnicity, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation or gender identity. Is the allocation of public resources discriminatory for older people? Do we enable the same degree of choice and personal budget allocation to those over 65 as to those under 65, to those who live in our care homes and those who live in their own homes?

Empowerment – Everyone should understand their rights, and be fully supported to take part in developing policy and practices, which affect their lives. Do those who use supports adequately understand their right to involvement in decisions around their support and care e.g., in terms of self-directed support?

Legality – An approach like this is about going beyond the minimum legal requirements and mainstreaming human rights in services, policies and practice to make them run better for everyone.

The challenge is to fully bring human rights home, so that whatever part of our system of care and support from assessment to delivery, from budget allocation to workforce support, we have human rights at the heart and core, not rhetoric but a person centred approach that values the individual and gives real choice, control, involvement and dignity.

Scottish Care is committed to embedding both our Conventions and building upon that work in the months and years to come. So feel free to keep visiting us and join us as we bring rights home.

Dr Donald Macaskill, 5th July 2016

@DrDMacaskill

This blog builds on a speech delivered to the 2016 Care at Home and Housing Support conference on 23rd June. This can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7uUf0v6phY

 

The independent sector – full of heart

Welcome to the first blog on our new website. Every month you will be able to read two new blogs, one from our CEO, the other from a guest blogger. Our aim is to inform you about what is happening in the independent sector, to encourage debate on issues of the moment and to promote innovation in the way that individuals are supported and cared for. We hope you enjoy them.

Last Sunday I had the privilege of taking part in the Royal College of Nursing 100th anniversary Congress which was held in Glasgow for the first time.

Together with the Director of the RCN in Scotland, Theresa Fyfe, and Scotland’s Chief Nursing Officer, Prof Fiona McQueen  I was invited to debate the contribution of third and independent sector nurses to care and health in Scotland.

My contribution was to reflect on the question ‘What needs to change for the independent and third sectors to be seen as equal partners in delivering health and care?’

To answer that question perhaps we need to ask something even more basic – What does it mean to be a nurse?

I’m probably not the right person to be answering that but it’s a question I can remember asking from an early age because every summer holiday I spent time with my aunt who was a district nurse in an island community… The archetypal navy-uniformed, Mini-driving, doctor-repelling, straight-talking Highland district nurse!

I remember asking her probably at a precocious ten years of age why she wasn’t a nurse in a hospital and amongst all her responses one thing stuck in the memory –

” I can get to know people, when they are ill and when they are well, I get to know them all, their sons and daughters, their neighbours and friends… And here I have time…  I didn’t have that in a hospital.

Maybe that’s a romanticised recollection of a ten year old but I remembered those words when recently I spoke to a nurse in a care home I was visiting. I was asking her what was different about nursing in a care home compared to a hospital. She said:

“Here I have time to get to know people, to sometimes become a friend, to nurse to the whole of the person and their family… It’s especially important at the end of life to be able to have known the person whose hand you are holding and who is spending their last moments with you.”

Time, relationship, being with, are some of the characteristics which mark out the especial circumstances of nursing in social care, whether in a care home or in someone’s own home. That’s not to say that they are alien to an acute environment but they are just more possible in non-hospital settings.

As we increasingly hear of the importance of people remaining at home or in a homely setting for as long as possible; as we read new policy initiatives such as the National Clinical Strategy or the Review of Out of Hours Provision, the potential and role of social care in achieving better health outcomes for people becomes a real one. In that regard nursing in social care settings becomes all the more important. There is real potential for those who want to nurse in care homes and in community locations to become a key ally in achieving the outcomes that people want for their lives. But to get there things need to change.

What needs to change for the independent and third sectors to be seen as equal partners in delivering health and care?

Perhaps not a lot for the person who is cared for at home and in a nursing home… but for the nurses themselves – the answer is that equality seems so very far away…

Do we really have equality when nurses in a care home setting are worse off (in terms and conditions) to the degree of around £6,500? Do we really have equality when nurses aren’t given the same opportunities for shared learning and development that colleagues in the NHS have? Do we have equality when countless nurses have told me about how lecturers in college dismissed care of the elderly as not ‘real’ nursing? Do we have equality when frontline nurses feel they have to justify working in a care home or in social care to their fellow professionals?

We need to give value to those who work in non-traditional settings, we need to honour and celebrate nursing staff in care homes and in the community as an essential contributor to the care and support of our communities. And yes value is in part by financial reward but its much more than that. It is about respect, being given a place, being listened to, being heard, having your contribution noticed and indeed celebrated.

The more nurses I have the privilege to speak to the more I know that despite the suffocating amount of paperwork and procedure that gets in the way- I might say unnecessarily so – it is the ability to form relationship, to nurture contact and to be with people that marks out nursing in an independent sector care home or care at home organisation as something which attracts.

In some essential truth nursing in the independent sector is authentic – it is genuine, honest, hard graft but at its best it is relational, human and valuable

What needs to change?  – we all do, society does, Scotland does. We need to change into a country that values those who have been labelled and limited by being described as old; we need to recognise contribution beyond location and value beyond number… Only then will nursing our older citizens be truly celebrated for the critical art it is.

Dr Donald Macaskill  Twitter: @DrDMacaskill

Leadership for Integration: You as a Collaborative Leader

Supporting collaborative leadership in health and social care integration: an invitation from NES, RCGP Scotland and SSSC

Applications are now open for Cohort 2 of You as a Collaborative Leader, which begins in September 2016.

You as a Collaborative Leader is part of the Leadership for Integration programme, which supports leadership development for health and social care integration.  It is offered in joint partnership by NHS Education for Scotland (NES), the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland (RCGP Scotland) and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), and is fully funded – no fees are payable by participants or their organisations.

The programme is aimed at you if you are a primary care or social care professional such as a GP, middle/senior primary care professional, or middle/senior manager in a statutory, third or independent social care organisation.  You will already be working in a lead role within  a locality or health and social care partnership to shape, develop and deliver integrated care.

You as a Collaborative Leader supports you to recognise your own leadership strengths and sources of resilience so you can lead more collaboratively and effectively in delivering integrated care. It is completed over a period of approximately four months and involves:

  • three 1:1 coaching sessions (one at the start, middle and end of the programme)
  • a 360-degree assessment and feedback exercise on your leadership capability
  • two full-day workshops on October 6th and November 10th in Edinburgh, focusing on leadership capabilities for health and social care integration
  • a tailored personal development plan to help you sustain your learning in practice

The application period for You as a Collaborative Leader is open for 7 weeks, from 13 June until 29 July.

Click here to apply.

There is a high demand for places on this programme, so all successful applicants cannot be guaranteed a place on this cohort.  However, a further two cohorts will be running over the next year, so those who do not get a place on cohort two may be considered for a future cohort.

More detailed information on You as a Collaborative Leader is available on the Knowledge Network webpages.

Please get in contact with [email protected] with any queries you may have.

Consultation on changes to SSSC Registration and Fitness to Practise Rules and Decisions Guidance

The SSSC are consulting on the SSSC Registration and Fitness to Practise Rules (the rules) and the Guidance for Fitness to Practise Panels on Making a Decision (guidance).

These are the main documents that set out the way:

  • they manage the Register
  • their hearing process works
  • their panel members decide the appropriate sanction.

The consultation is open from 1 June 2016 until 5pm on 31 July 2016.  It is important that providers take part in this important consultation, or give their feedback to Scottish Care.

When the consultation ends the SSSC will consider whether there are any changes they need to make to improve the draft versions, for example:

  • add in anything that has been overlooked
  • make the rules clearer
  • suggestions and improvements
  • make changes to prevent any unintended consequences if a rule change will have an impact on a stakeholder they have not considered.

Start the consultation

View a PDF of the consultation

For more information, visit the SSSC website.

Webinars

The SSSC are holding live and interactive webinars about the changes they are making to the Rules and decisions guidance.

This is an opportunity to find out more about the changes and ask questions about how they will work in practice. The free webinars will be hosted by Maree Allison, the Director of Fitness to Practise.  The SSSC will consider any comments made alongside the responses to the consultation.

The webinars are running on the three dates listed below. Click on the following links to sign up:

Contact details

If you would like a paper copy of the consultation please email [email protected]

If you have any queries about the consultation please contact [email protected]

New dementia learning resources

The SSSC have published updated versions of their popular dementia learning resources.

These SSSC resources will help you gain the right level of knowledge and skills in dementia care and support.

Background

The Scottish Government asked the SSSC (in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland (NES)) to create these resources so workers across health and social services are better supported in providing high quality care and support to people with dementia, their families and carers. Better experiences in Scotland’s health and social services means a much better quality of life for everyone affected by dementia, which is the main aim of Scotland’s National Dementia Strategies.

Informed about Dementia

This video resource has five chapters and provides the baseline knowledge and skills for everyone working in health and social services, even services for children.

Once you’ve watched the videos you can apply for an Informed about Dementia Open Badge which is a digital certificate to recognise learning and achievement.

Watch the videos and find out how to earn an Open Badge here.

Dementia Skilled – Improving Practice

This resource also has five chapters and will help you achieve the level of practice required by all workers who have a direct role supporting people with dementia, their families and carers. Reflective account questions are included which are an optional form of assessment. If you write reflective accounts of the right depth they may help you progress towards a work-based award, for example the SVQ Social Services and Healthcare at SCQF level 7.

Access the resource on the SSSC website under dementia informed and dementia skilled practice levels.

Coming up

More guidance will be available soon to help everyone involved in dementia learning get the most from their experience of using Dementia Skilled – Improving Practice. The guidance will be available on the SSSC Learning Zone and will include helpful advice for learners, managers and assessors.