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Job Opportunity – Administrator

An exciting opportunity has arisen within Scottish Care/Partners for Integration for an Administrator to work as part of our team. This is a full time post with a £23, 347 salary, working flexibly between our Scottish Care office in Ayr and home-based and there will be a requirement for occasional attendance at meetings & events.

Scottish Care is the representative body for the largest group of health and social care sector independent providers across Scotland delivering residential care, day care, care at home and housing support. Our vision is to shape the environment in which care services can deliver and develop the high quality care that communities require and deserve. The work we do helps to create these conditions through partnership working, membership support and innovation.

Our Partners for Integration team is a national network of development staff with backgrounds in education, social care, health, and the voluntary sector who work to ensure the effective representation of independent sector agencies within Health and Social Care Partnerships.

The post holder must have experience in office administration.  They must have the ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, versatility & flexibility along with excellent interpersonal skills at all levels is essential. The post holder must also have excellent IT skills with knowledge of Microsoft Office packages.

This is an exciting post for someone who will have a strong commitment to the work of the organisation and the ability to work in a culture that is innovative.

For further information please email [email protected]  who will forward a Job Description & Person Specification and Application Form.

To apply, forward a completed application to [email protected]

Interviews will be held on Thursday 22nd July 2021.

Closing Date: Monday 12th July at 12.00pm

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Nursing Event (24 June) – Programme now available

We will be hosting a virtual nursing event on 24th June from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.

This event will look at the future vision for health and social care nursing. We have a full programme of speakers including presentations from frontline staff, and representation from professional bodies: NMC around the new standards and RCN in supporting revalidation. We also have a panel session that centres around education and leadership, in supporting our future leaders.

The event will be supported by the CNO, the Scottish Government, as well as the Chief Nurse with the Care Inspectorate.

Please note that the session on ‘Collaborative Leadership Development’ at 12:30 is interactive. We kindly ask participants to have a second device ready (such as a mobile phone or tablet) to allow them to take part in this interactive session.

If you have any questions on this event, please contact our Transforming Workforce Lead for Nursing, Jacqui Neil at [email protected].

Register interest
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Time for change – Opening up prescribing for care home nurses in Scotland

This article was first published on Nursing in Practice.

Authors: Jacqui Neil  – Transforming Workforce Lead for Nursing (Scottish Care), Derek T Barron – Director of Care (Erskine Homes), Jane Harris – Head of Programme,  Postgraduate and Post-registration Education and Continuing Professional Development (NHS Education for Scotland)

Nurse prescribing was introduced in the UK in 1998 when district nurses and health visitors were given the authority to prescribe from a limited national formulary. Since its introduction in the United States in the late 1960s, (Clarke et al 2019), nurse prescribing has increased worldwide. As other professions have gained prescribing rights, the term ‘non-medical prescribing’ (NMP) is used to describe any prescribing completed by a healthcare professional other than a doctor or dentist (Maier 2020).

In 2006, the Nursing and Midwifery Council published Standards of Proficiency for Nurse and Midwife Prescribers, which drove prescribing forward for all nurses and midwives across the UK. The Scottish Government developed guidance to support the roll-out of non-medical prescribing in Scotland in the publication ‘Non-Medical Prescribing in Scotland: Guidance for Nurse Independent Prescribers and for Community Practitioner Nurse Prescribers in Scotland‘ (Ness et al 2015).

Non-medical prescribing is defined as prescribing by an appropriate practitioner (doctor, dentist, paramedic, nurse, midwife, pharmacist, physiotherapist, podiatrists optometrist, diagnostic and therapeutic radiographer) responsible and accountable for the assessment of patients with undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the clinical management required (DOH 2006). In August 2010 the Scottish Government published a progress report on nurse prescribing in Scotland showing that nurse prescribing produced better care for patients, faster access to medicines, better use of nurses’ and doctors’ time RCN (2014), NMP was viewed as improving communication between health professionals and supportive of key health care policy in Scotland, particularly in relation to shifting the balance of care from acute to community services.

In addition, prescribing was seen as responsive to assessment in relation to older people with more complex needs. Cope et al (2016) highlighted that students training to become non medical prescribers felt the programme provided them with adequate knowledge to prescribe with some stating that the period of learning in practice was ‘the most valuable part of the course’.  Nurse prescribing is now well established in Scotland.

Care home nurses in Scotland left behind

Non-medical prescribing is a key step in the chief nursing officer’s 2030 vision to ensure personalising care, preparing nurses for the future. (CNOD 2017).  Nurse who NMP work predominantly within the NHS.  A literature review showed no data regarding NMP in UK care homes.  This indicates the sector’s exclusion from NMP, despite the potential positive impact on delivering responsive care at the right time, a key driver within many policy documents (Scottish Government 2010, 2017).  In addition, having on-site prescribers reduces the need and workload for GPs or external advanced nurse practitioners (ANP).

One reason for ‘being left behind’, include the lack of investment in the independent sector to support NMP, resulting in a nursing workforce which has been left behind by their NHS counterparts. Despite numerous calls for this to be addressed over the years it has failed to be achieved (Merryfield 2015).

The pandemic has amplified how crucial a skilled workforce is to deliver safe, effective, person-centred care. Care home nurses are in a prime position as they know their residents better than most external prescribers.  In providing 24-hour care to residents, they can notice and act on subtle changes that would prevent unnecessary deterioration, if acted on promptly.

This gap was noted as a frustration in the Scottish Care 2021 Nursing Survey which asked if the organisations supported registered nurses to undertake a prescribing course, if it were available: 89.5 % of respondents said ‘yes’. If this was facilitated, it could promote nurse leadership and autonomy within the sector, which is intrinsic to the sustainability of social care nursing as well as community nursing.

The difficulties for employers

There are difficulties faced by care home nurses who wish to carry out NMP. Although highly skilled and knowledgeable expert generalists, they face a number of systemic challenges.  In 2017 Erskine Veterans care, invested in NMP in two of its homes. Despite NMP being within the registered nurses’ scope of practice for many years embedding it within the care home environment was not easy.

Prescribing liability insurance for NMPs within NHS Scotland is covered by CNORIS (Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme).  No such universal cover exists within care homes, as such Erskine required to take out separate cover to insure the NMP duties of their ANPs. The ANPs, although full independent (V300) prescribers, only prescribe from a limited ‘care home’ formulary, developed in Erskine with input from our GPs (Boyd & Barron, 2019).  The insurance industry does not consider NMP part of the every-day duties of a registered nurse, which is covered by the generic nursing duties cover every care home will have.

The most basic pieces of equipment that the NMP requires is a prescription pad.  The local GP practice would not issue a pad for fear that they may be vicariously liable for the prescribing of someone they did not employ.  That left Erskine in the situation of negotiating with the local Health & Social Care Partnership to have a ‘community’ prescription pad issued, in the same way a district nurse has a prescription pad issued. While there are other hurdles to overcome, the journey has been worthwhile. It has led to early intervention from the ANPs when a resident deteriorates, this can be in situations of infection, as well as at end of life. It has led to regular, 12 weekly review of psychotropic medications and covert meds, ensuring both are used as little as possible for as short at time as possible. This puts the residents at the centre of care decisions rather than having medication prescribed and then continued simply because no review had taken place.

The Transforming Roles programme

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has established education and development pathways from registration through to advanced and consultant practice that support changing service needs.  One such pathway, the Integrated Community Nursing (ICN) Pathway, offers targeted post-registration education aiming to maximise the potential of the nurses’ role in Scottish care homes. The Graduate Diploma in Integrated Community Nursing forms the foundation of NES’s ICN pathway. This centrally funded, two year part-time practice-based programme is designed for nurses working in care home, district, prison health or general practice nursing at level 5 (Agenda for Change Band 5 equivalent) of the NES Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Development Framework (NES 2021).  Nurses develop a range of new knowledge and skills to enhance their practice and meet people’s physical, mental health, and social care needs.

This new approach puts care home nursing on an equal footing with more established community nursing specialities in terms of access to education and role development. Care home nurses may continue through the pathway completing studies at postgraduate level, first qualifying in their speciality and then with the option to qualify as advanced and consultant nurses.  Safe and timely access to appropriate medication as part of the personalised, rights-based and compassionate care and support that care home nurses deliver is a key outcome of the new pathway. It was designed to include Nurse Independent Prescribing as an optional module in the Graduate Diploma ICN and an essential component of the specialist postgraduate stage. The benefits of a structured and sustainable model for education and development for care home nurses that includes Nurse Independent Prescribing gives employers, education providers, the multidisciplinary team and the nurses themselves the incentive to overcome the current barriers and enable prescribing to become part of care home nurses’ practice.

References

Boyd, J. & Barron, D. (2019) Employing an advanced nurse practitioner in a care home. Nursing Times Vol 115 Issue 6 pp 45-47

Cope, L. Abuzour, S and Tully, M.  (2016) Nonmedical prescribing: where are we now?  First Published April 2016

Department of Health (2006) Improving patients’ access to medicines. Department of Health and Social care ,UK Gov web archives London

Graham-Clarke, E. Rushton, A. Noblet, T. Marriott, J. (2019) Non-medical prescribing in the United Kingdom National Health Service: A systematic policy review accessed online

Maier, C.B. (2020) Nurse prescribing of medicines in 13 European countries. NIH National library of medicines 2019 Dec 9;17(1):95. doi: 10.1186/s12960-019-0429-6. PubMed.gov

Merryfield, N. (2015) Call to tackle barriers to nurse prescribing in care homes Nursing Times online archives.

Ness, V. Malcolm, W. McGivern, G. Reilly, J  (2007) Growth in nurse prescribing of antibiotics: the Growth in nurse prescribing of antibiotics: the Scottish experience 2007–13. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Volume 70, Issue 12, December 2015, Pages 3384–3389, https://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkv255

NHS Education for Scotland (2021) Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Development Framework Available at: https://www.careerframework.nes.scot.nhs.uk/  last accessed: 21.05.2021

RCN (2012) RCN Factsheet on nurse prescribing in the UK (updated 2014)  Policy & International Dept.  last updated 2014 accessed online 2021.

Scottish Care (2021) unpublished Nursing survey

Scottish Government (2010) The Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHS Scotland. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/healthcare-quality-strategy-nhsscotland/ last accessed 21.05.2021

Scottish Government (2010) Everyone Matters, 2020 Workforce Vision. Available at:https://www.workforcevision.scot.nhs.uk/challenges/2020-vision-for-healthcare-in-scotland  Last accessed 21.05.2021

Scottish Government (2017) Health and social care standards, My support, my life.  Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/health-social-care-standards-support-life/ Last accessed 21.05.2021

Scottish Government (2017) Nursing 2030 Vision. Chief Nursing Directorate Nursing. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/nursing-2030-vision-9781788511001/  Last access 21.05.2021

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Scottish Care launches new social care data report

Scottish Care, the representative body for Scotland’s independent social care services, is publishing a new report which shares their vision for social care data. This report will be launched on the final day (Thursday 17 June) of their virtual Care at Home and Housing Support Conference.

The conference, ‘Homecare Festival’ – is a three-day event that brings people together from across the care at home and housing support sector to share their experiences and plan for the future of home care.

The report titled ‘Seeing the diamond in social care data’ brings together findings from a series of data forums hosted by Scottish Care and involved colleagues from across the social care sector, industry, academia and government.

Scotland is data-rich but intelligence poor, whilst fragmented data collection, standards and access in social care have made data hard to navigate. The report highlights the importance of a human rights-based perspective, enabling people to have control over their data and how it is shared to initiate care and support on their own terms. Scottish Care seeks a vision where data is person-led; is based on the needs, wishes and aspirations of people for their care and support, informs the design of services and planning and the resulting indicators of performance and success.

Karen Hedge, National Director of Scottish Care commented:

“For too long, the fragments of social care data have been drivers acting on behalf of the social care system rather than on behalf of those who access social care and support. Implementing the principles and vision contained within this report, would completely turn that on its head and put the individual in control. In addressing the fragmentation, it also allows for better use of resources by enabling better coordination for planning and delivery.”

Read the report here
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Media statement: mandating Covid-19 vaccinations for care home staff

Reports of the UK Government seeking to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for care home staff have little relevance for Scotland.

The Scottish approach to date has been one of close partnership working between the sector, the NHS and the Scottish Government.

We have sought to develop a policy and practice of information and encouragement rather than mandating and instructing.

In large part this has been a successful approach to date. As of the 15th June the vaccination dashboard from PHS details that 100% of care home staff have received both doses. Obviously statistically this does not mean all staff have now been vaccinated because there is a continual flow of new staff etc and there may be some homes with less than 100.% compliance. But even then we have clear measures now in place to ensure new starts are offered the vaccine and where there are gaps that there are targeted efforts to increase uptake.

We have found that answering questions honestly where there are concerns, getting trusted voices to communicate the importance of the message for the staff member’s own safety and that of residents, encouraging peer support and taking the vaccines to care homes have all helped to both remove barriers and reduce reticence.

Ends./

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Legal Webinar: BTO Solicitors – 23 June

We are delighted to present the second webinar in our Legal Webinar series.

These webinars will feature our Legal Resources Select group, a carefully selected group of law firms in Scotland. Find out more about our Legal Resources Select group here.

This session will take place on Wednesday 23 June at 2PM, hosted by Scottish Care CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill and featuring representatives from BTO Solicitors LLP.

Webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82002823134

Webinar ID: 820 0282 3134

More information on the webinar session below:

Covid Legacy Challenge: Would your organisation pass the Covid health check?

BTO will consider a range of challenges affecting organisations in the post-Covid era. From employment law claims to Health and Safety Investigations/prosecutions, employers must still be wary.  While we hope that the worst of the pandemic is over, there is still much for employers to be aware of.

We will provide advice on how best to manage the ongoing employment issues, looking at, for example, foreign travel and holidays, self-isolation and quarantine, and vaccinations, with a review of some of the Covid related employment tribunal claims that are now, in increasing numbers, coming through the system,

We will consider the continuing health and safety obligations, and how to protect your workplace from claims and Regulatory scrutiny. BTO will consider the challenges that you may face and how best to ensure resilience in the face of emerging risks and longer term aspects of the post Covid era. Q&A for members.

Our presenters are as follows:

Douglas Strang, Associate – Employment Law: [email protected] / 0141 221 8012

Vikki Watt, Partner & Solicitor Advocate – Health & Safety, Regulatory & Criminal Defence: [email protected] / 0141 225 5317.

 

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Legal Webinar: BTO Solicitors – 23 June

We are delighted to present the second webinar in our Legal Webinar series.

These webinars will feature our Legal Resources Select group, a carefully selected group of law firms in Scotland. Find out more about our Legal Resources Select group here.

This session will take place on Wednesday 23 June at 2PM, hosted by Scottish Care CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill and featuring representatives from BTO Solicitors LLP.

Covid Legacy Challenge: Would your organisation pass the Covid health check?

BTO will consider a range of challenges affecting organisations in the post-Covid era. From employment law claims to Health and Safety Investigations/prosecutions, employers must still be wary.  While we hope that the worst of the pandemic is over, there is still much for employers to be aware of.

We will provide advice on how best to manage the ongoing employment issues, looking at, for example, foreign travel and holidays, self-isolation and quarantine, and vaccinations, with a review of some of the Covid related employment tribunal claims that are now, in increasing numbers, coming through the system,

We will consider the continuing health and safety obligations, and how to protect your workplace from claims and Regulatory scrutiny. BTO will consider the challenges that you may face and how best to ensure resilience in the face of emerging risks and longer term aspects of the post Covid era. Q&A for members.

Our presenters are as follows:

Douglas Strang, Associate – Employment Law: [email protected] / 0141 221 8012

Vikki Watt, Partner & Solicitor Advocate – Health & Safety, Regulatory & Criminal Defence: [email protected] / 0141 225 5317.

Joining details will be available on the Members Area shortly.

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Care Radio launches across the UK

A new radio station dedicated to the UK’s nine million carers is now on air.

Designed with NHS workers, care home employees and at-home carers in mind, Care Radio aims to celebrate the role of carers in society and the incredible sacrifices frontline carers – paid and unpaid – have made during the pandemic.

With a remit to surprise, delight and support those who care, the volunteer Care Radio team will offer a mix of classic hits, interviews, listener stories and advice and support, as well as national and international news on the hour and news stories from the care sector every half hour.

Care Radio will also have input from care providers and carers themselves through the real-life stories they share, and the station’s Young Carers initiative will give young people across the sector the opportunity to shape its programming and learn new skills.

The station also plans promotions, special offers and other incentives to carers as a way of thanking them for their selfless work.

Care Radio is a not for profit Community Interest Company. Broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Care Radio team includes seasoned broadcasters, journalists and producers, backed by finance, fundraising and media professionals, all devoting their time and services for free.

The new station is also supported by Highland based Parklands Care Homes, winner of the Best Smaller Care Home Group award in 2020.

Care Radio CEO John Dash has 40 years experience as a radio producer, presenter, editor and programme director.

He said: “The impact of Covid-19 has been felt right across society but arguably carers have borne the brunt, from our frontline NHS workers to care home staff and at-home carers, both paid and unpaid. We all clapped for them last year and rightly so. With the pandemic easing, it’s important that we continue to celebrate the contribution they make, day in and day out. Care Radio will do just that.

“This will be a radio network for people who care, delivered by people who care. Many of our broadcasters and volunteers have first-hand experience of caring for loved ones or work in the health and social care sector. All of them share a passion for care and the people who work in it. Care Radio will be their friend and companion through good times and bad.”

Care Radio Chairman Hedley Finn OBE is also president of children’s charity Radio Lollipop which broadcasts to 36 hospitals in six countries.

He said: “We have a wonderful array of presenters from across the UK, backed by a team of volunteers who know and understand the challenges that carers face every day. We have a simple mission – to surprise, delight and support Britain’s millions of carers, and remind them that they are not alone. After the year they have endured, and the challenges many carers continue to face every day, the launch of Care Radio could not be more timely.”

Ron Taylor, managing director of Parklands Care Homes said: “I know from my own personal experience as a young carer that it can be a lonely and often solitary experience and I think that carers around the UK will really warm to Care Radio. It’s an exciting new concept and one that Parklands is enthusiastic to support.”

The station can be heard through the Care Radio app, available from Apple and Android stores as well as being streamed online at www.careradio.org and will soon be available on DAB multiplexes around the UK.