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Data Strategy Engagement Session – 23 June

Call for engagement on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care

In March, Scottish Care members participated in early engagement with the Data Strategy Team.  You can a summary of their findings to date here: https://www.digihealthcare.scot/app/uploads/2022/05/Data-Strategy-HSC-Engagement-Summary-March-2022-pdf.pdf

A follow up engagement session has been scheduled for 23rd June 1-2pm and we would encourage as many members as possible to attend and help shape this important area of policy.

Please register interest with [email protected]

Or contact Nicola Cooper, Technology and Digital Innovation Lead for further information [email protected]

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Help us create “A Scotland that Cares”

From today (26 May 22) Scottish Care and partner organisations are calling on organisations to support the next phase of the campaign for a new National Outcome to fully value and invest in those experiencing care and all those providing it.

This is a campaign created by Oxfam Scotland, Carers Scotland, Scottish Care, One Parent Families Scotland, the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, with support from the University of the West of Scotland. Together, we are calling for the Scottish Government to add a dedicated National Outcome on care to their existing set, in recognition that care – and all those provide it – are currently invisible within them.

People who care for others, whether paid or unpaid, are under-valued and under-rewarded, creating significant personal and financial costs for many, particularly for women who provide most care.

In the coming months, for the first time in five years, the Scottish Government will begin to review the existing National Outcomes – the legally required goals which it says describe the kind of Scotland it aims to create. We believe that care must be placed at the heart of the Scottish Government’s vision for Scotland.

Today we’re launching a new phase of our campaign for a new National Outcome on care – now called “A Scotland that Cares”. We’re asking organisations across Scotland to support the campaign. Find out how to show your support here: https://oxfamapps.org/scotland/2022/05/24/a-scotland-that-cares/ #ScotlandCares

An Invitation: “A Scotland that Cares” Partner Webinar: 8 June 2022

We understand that you may have questions about the Campaign. We therefore wish to invite you to a short, informal online webinar – 1000-1100 on Wednesday, 8 June 2022 – to find out more. The webinar will explain the background to the Campaign, with short contributions from existing partners, and input from the University of the West of Scotland on their blueprint for a National Outcome on care.

Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-scotland-that-cares-partner-briefing-tickets-348686991177

We very much hope organisations will consider supporting A Scotland that Cares.

 

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Home Care Decisions App

Home Care Decisions App:  Your Opportunity to Lead the Way in Digital Innovation in Care Homes and Care at Home

Dear all

Scottish Care and the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) invite you to become an early adopter of the new Home Care Decisions App.

What is the Home Care Decisions App?

This app is provided freely to all care home and care at home services in Scotland, as part of the national decision support programme funded by Scottish Government. It is available via the app stores by searching for “Home Care Decisions” and on the web at http://homecaredecisions.scot.nhs.uk

It delivers easy to use guidance and practical tools that improve safe, timely care and appropriate referral and escalation. The tools support care-workers in:

  • Delivering day to day care
  • Communicating in a shared language with the multi-professional team
  • Learning and personal development. 

The app offers two toolkits:

  • Care assessment and management– including Clinical Frailty Scale,  4AT tool for delirium screening, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, UTI assessment.
  • Palliative and end of life care

Care-workers strongly endorsed the app in the initial pilot, with 76-84% saying they were likely to use the toolkits in their day to day work.

What does being an early adopter involve?

Scottish Care, DHI, and colleagues in other early adopter sites will support you to embed this app in your service so that staff, service users and the wider healthcare team benefit from these evidence-based tools. We will help you to:

  • Put in place communication mechanisms to make sure all staff in your organization, including new recruits, know about the app and its benefits.
  • Define and implement processes and supporting technology to ensure that all staff who would benefit from the app have easy access to it in the work place.
  • Provide training, drawing upon national learning resources, to ensure that staff are confident in using the app.
  • Agree metrics and methods to evaluate impact of the app on practice and outcomes and take these measures over an agreed evaluation period.
  • Review evaluation results and agree improvements to the app and to the implementation process.

The learning you share as an early adopter will facilitate wider roll-out of the app in care homes and care at home services across Scotland.

To express interest in being an early adopter, please contact [email protected]

Home Care Decisions App flyer 19032022 v2
Download flyer
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Health and Care Leadership Programme – Cohort 18 Recruitment

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are currently recruiting for Cohort 18 of the Digital Health and Care Leadership Programme (DLP). Deadline for applications is Friday 1st July 2022.

There are lots of opportunities to learn more about the programme

  • There will be a session with past participants who will be sharing their experiences of the programme on Thursday 26th May 13:30-14:30, .
  • Informal Q&A sessions for anyone wishing to find out more about the programme and ask any questions they may have. To book a place on a session, please register here.
  • Application guidance can be found on the Turas Programme Page.

NES are able to offer feedback on early applications before these are sent for review by the selection panel.

Applications are welcome from employees within NHS Scotland, social care, housing and the third sector who are leading a team, service or digital transformation within their organisation. Multidisciplinary team applications would also be welcome from those working collaboratively on the same project.

Any queries should be directed to [email protected].

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Hawkhill House celebrates Nurses Week 2022

Hawkhill House in Aberdeen celebrated Nurses Week 2022 (6 May – 12 May) in style with staff and residents taking part in many activities! Nurses have gone through a lot of challenges and difficulties in the past couple of years and the staff and residents at Hawkhill House wanted to make them feel special and appreciated on their special week.

As part of their celebrations, they held a festive lunch for all the nurses, residents hand-made Thank You cards, and together they played a game of bingo and online puzzles with the chance to win prizes.  At the end of the event, everyone received a special gift,  this was Hawkhill’s simple way to say thank you and show their gratitude to all their nurses for their continuous hard work and dedication.

Have a look at the pictures below to see everyone having fun and celebrating!

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‘I feel, I see, I imagine’ Nursing Event Roundup – 12 May 2022

Huge thanks to all our speakers and attendees for coming along to our virtual nursing ‘I feel, I see, I imagine’ event on Thursday 12 May for International Nurses Day 2022.

The morning session focused on celebrating social care nursing, we heard from a number of keynote speakers raising awareness of nursing in the social care sector. We also heard from career nurses who shared their journey to becoming a care home nurse.

The afternoon session looked at highlighting the value of care homes as a practice learning environment. Attendees heard from care home providers and their experience of supporting pre-registration nursing students and using their care homes as a practice learning environment. Attendees also got the chance to ask questions during a Q & A session.

We are pleased to share the recordings and presentation slides from this event. We have also included the information collated from the jamboard in the afternoon session ‘Exploring your Care home as a practice learning environment’. These are available via the buttons below. If you have any issues accessing these files at all, please contact [email protected].

You can also catch up on the day on Twitter with the hashtag #IfeelIseeIimagine

Morning session recording available here
Afternoon session recording available here
Presentation slides available here
'Exploring your Care Home as a practice learning environment' jamboard information

During this event, we published a new insights report on nursing in social care.

The report titled ‘Hearing the nursing voice:  Listening to Independent Sector Social Care Nurses’ is a follow on from the 2016 report – ‘Voices from the Nursing Front Line’, capturing the experiences of frontline registered nurses working in the independent social care sector in Scotland. The report depicts the rewards and challenges of social care nursing, whilst highlighting the importance of nursing within the sector as well as the specialism of the role.

This report is now available on the Scottish Care website, please give it a read.

Read the insights report here
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Launch of formal consultation on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care

Please see below for a formal letter advising you of the launch of the formal consultation on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care, which opened for submissions on Monday 16th May until the 12th August 2022. 

DB DHAC Data Strategy Consultation May 2022
Download letter

The Digital Health and Care directorate are keen to hear a diverse range of views and therefore we encourage you to submit comments on the consultation paper: https://consult.gov.scot/digital-health/data-strategy-for-health-and-social-care

The Digital Health and Care directorate have, and continue to, undertake a broad range of engagement with stakeholders and the public to support the development the Data Strategy. You can find a summary of their findings to date here: https://www.digihealthcare.scot/app/uploads/2022/05/Data-Strategy-HSC-Engagement-Summary-March-2022-pdf.pdf

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Data Strategy team directly on [email protected]

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Digital Skills User Interviews – Have your Say

The Digitally Enabled Workforce team, within NHS Education for Scotland (NES), are working to support the development of digital skills and capabilities across the whole of Scotland’s health and social care workforce.  As part of this we want to make it easier to find and use online digital skills learning resources by centralising access to these on a single, easy to use, platform which will be available to everyone across health and social care.

To understand what people need and want from a platform like this, we are carrying out research interviews.  It is important that we hear from as many different roles across health and care as possible and would like to ask for your help with this.

Each interview will take approximately 50 minutes and can be conducted online or by telephone.  The interviews will include discussion about current digital skills, use of technology and learning experiences and take place between Monday 16 May and Friday 03 June.  They will be led by Hamish Linehan and Kate Penton-Voak who are employed by our partner agency – Capgemini – who commonly work with large organisations on user research like this.  Information given will be anonymised and used only for the purpose of this research project.

If you or a member of your team would like to take part in an interview, then please contact us by email at [email protected] and include:

  • Your name
  • Preferred method of interview (online/telephone)
  • Contact details (email/telephone number)

With interviews beginning next week we would greatly appreciate that names are submitted as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance.

Digitally Enabled Workforce Team

www.nes.scot.nhs.uk

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Dementia and Covid -19: Medication Support

The government have contracted the Care Inspectorate to look at the prescribing, use and review of psychoactive medication in care homes during the pandemic.    This work will commence in a few months and will involve only a sample of care homes.

As your Transforming Workforce Lead, I am keen this work will inform future supports that are needed for people in the sector, including staff.

Dr David Marshall, Senior Improvement Adviser (Pharmacy) at the Care Inspectorate said “I am delighted that Dr Jane Douglas [Scottish Care Transforming Workforce Lead (Nursing)] has agreed to represent the sector at the report writings stage of this project”.

We are all aware of the impact on the sector caused by recent national investigations into operations during Covid-19. We also recognise the potential for stress with any such medication work. However, I am assured that the thrust of this work is about looking at the legitimate appropriate use of psychoactive medicines, and that the methodology used will keep operational impact to a minimum.

The beginning of Covid-19 presented particular challenges for all working in the care sector, including the necessary suspension of many of the normal services and supports that we receive and that we can offer.  Understanding the relationship between the COVID-19 virus and the impact it had on care services and on those with dementia, especially during the first wave, is crucial.

Following engagement with people with dementia and their carers, the government produced their Dementia and Covid-19 – National Action Plan.  More information on that can be found at the link below.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/dementia-covid-19-national-action-plan-continue-support-recovery-people-dementia-carers/

 

Dr Jane Douglas

Transforming Workforce Lead for Nursing

 

 

 

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Day Care Services Surgery – 1 June 2022

Over the past 2 years of the pandemic we have been very aware of the impact that Covid has had upon Care Homes and Home Care services.

One area that may have been overlooked and forgotten about are Day Services which are buildings based.  We at Scottish Care would like to meet with members of Scottish Care to discuss the issues and challenges you have faced over the past 2 years and also the resultant outcomes such as reduced funding and client referrals etc.

We have arranged a one off special surgery webinar session with ALL building based day services (including non-members) and it will take place on:

Wednesday 1st June at 2-3pm.

Please register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqdOqoqzIoHNMW_jwTBd26SA3FjxQ_0kEH 

After registering, you should receive an email from Zoom with details to join this session.

We would be grateful if you would consider attending this important surgery session. Your host for this session is the Scottish Care CEO Donald Macaskill.

If you are unable to attend please send your comments to Stefanie Callaghan: [email protected]

Looking forward to seeing you on the day.