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Tickets now available for Care Home Gathering (19-21 Jan)

We are delighted to announce that tickets are now available for Care Home Gathering.

Tickets are priced at £45 + VAT and will give delegates access to all 3 days of the event. Attendance is flexible and delegates are able to go to whichever sessions they find interesting or most useful.

The Care Home Gathering event will take place between Tuesday 19th January – Thursday 21st January. This is a virtual 3-day event will reflect on the issues that care homes has faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, exploring new innovations that have been implemented during this time and using these reflections to help shape the future of the care home sector.

There will be a series of online sessions over this event with the following themes:

Theme 1: Remembering a year of pain and professionalism

Theme 2: Living with a pandemic: practical insights and innovations

Theme 3: Reclaiming and renewing: change that matters 

A full programme for these three days can be found below.

The Care Home Gathering will end with an Awards Evening on Friday 22nd January to celebrate the dedicated care home workforce and all the extraordinary work that they do. This will be a separate event, tickets will be available shortly.

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Printed Christmas Decorations at Randolph Hill

Randolph Hill has been using wall prints as Christmas decorations for health and safety reasons during the Covid-19 pandemic.  These are printed on clear vinyl, so can be attached to the walls removed easily and can be wiped down safely. The prints included a six-foot tree (see below). What a great way to celebrate Christmas whilst mitigating any risks of Coronavirus!

Examples of these prints can be viewed below.

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Job Opportunity – Independent Sector Lead: North Highland Partnership

INDEPENDENT SECTOR LEAD – North Highland Partnership

(The Highland Council geographic area)

PARTNERS FOR INTEGRATION AND IMPROVEMENT

SCOTTISH CARE

Health and Social Care Integration

£43,622 per annum – 35 hours per week

Fixed term contract for 12 months which will be reviewed at 9 months

This post will focus on supporting Care Home Providers

Do you have an interest in improving the quality of care, can you COLLABORATE, INNOVATE AND COMMUNICATE, and would you like to join a successful, committed and highly motivated team? This could be the opportunity you have been waiting for.

We are seeking to engage an Independent Sector Lead to support the Integration of Health and Social Care in the Highland area.  Hosted by Scottish Care and working closely with Care Home providers and partners, the post involves ensuring sector involvement in the delivery of the integrating of health and social care in Scotland’s HSCPs.

The post holder must be highly motivated, be able to use initiative, possess excellent communication and networking skills, demonstrate success and experience working at strategic level with policy makers, providers, regulators, people supported by services and carers. Qualifications and experience at a senior management level would be a significant advantage.

The post holder will be expected to create and support significant collaborations across the independent care sector while contributing to the development of new care pathways which will result in the delivery of improved outcomes for people who access care and support. The post holder will ensure the Independent sector’s contribution is fundamental to integrated services and transformational change and be able to evidence their impact. The role requires considerable and skilful collaboration with our key partners in the NHS, Local Authority, Care Home Providers and other forums.

The post is home based with travel where necessary, and is hosted by Scottish Care.

To request an application pack, please contact Colette Law at Scottish Care by email [email protected]

Closing date 4pm on Monday 4th January 2021. Interviews will be held by video conference  – date to be confirmed

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Homecare Day 20 – Workforce Blog

I can hardly believe that we are back at homecare day and that it has been a year since I last wrote about my love of homecare and what it had meant to me personally as a homecare manager responsible for delivering services across Glasgow.

Sitting writing about and celebrating all that is good and amazing about homecare in December 2019, I would never have imagined that COVID was about to hit and bring with it the many changes we have seen since March this year.

As this is a celebration piece I am not going to dwell on the many ongoing challenges the workforce are currently experiencing as a result of COVID-19, but instead once more highlight again the wonderful work that homecare staff continue to deliver all year round.  This year more than any it is important to thank and celebrate these social care workers who despite the challenge, despite the difficulty of the work involved and despite the risk get up each morning and deliver their truly life changing work.  Care workers who support people to stay at home with their loved ones, to live in their own communities and empower them to live as full a life as possible.  This has been achieved with care and support from workers who encourage them each and every day and at a time when staff members are also struggling with the impact of COVID-19.

I would like to celebrate the resilience of our social care workforce who have said very little in the way of complaint but have risen to the challenge presented and continued to provide homecare services.  The staff who have voluntarily gone and have been tested for COVID-19 on a regular basis for their piece of mind and to ensure they are not passing on the infection to others and those they support.  A workforce whose absence levels dropped from the beginning of the pandemic and who have worked steadily to ensure that vitally important care is delivered to those most vulnerable in our communities.

I have been told directly by homecare managers how impressed they have been to witness their staffing teams deliver care services day after day while managing their own fears and concerns during this pandemic.  Care managers are the biggest champions of their own staff and you can hear the pride they feel as they speak of their workers and what they are managing to achieve against all odds.  I say against all odds as this is a sector that was extremely fragile before COVID-19 due to the sheer nature of their work, what they are asked to do and the little recognition and respect social care staff  generally receive.

Homecare is particularly special to me as I started as a home care worker and found my niche in life with this work.  Building relationships with people and eventually being instrumental in creating their care packages was a privilege.  I witnessed people overcoming huge adversity and some of the worst challenge’s life can throw at you.  Individuals who experienced ill health and accidents that dramatically changed their way of living and quality of life but were supported to regain their independence as much as possible and continue to enjoy the things that made them happy.  When you work in homecare you get to experience the very varied and different ways people choose to live their lives and to be a small part of that at times.  This time of year is historically challenging as staff are keen to have time off to spend with their families however in my experience a balance was always managed to be achieved and staff share many a laugh and festive cheer with those they care for and their family members.

Quite often a Santa hat and bits of tinsel were part of the Christmas care worker uniform (sadly not this year for infection control reasons) and generally people were in great spirits when working together over the holiday period.

COVID-19 has made us all focus on the importance of our relationships with others whether they are with our families, friends, work colleagues and those we meet during our work.  It is no wonder that homecare workers have stepped up and continued to make a huge difference to people by providing their essential care and support and ensuring they remain safe at home as building relationships is a huge part of the work they do.  These meaningful relationships between care workers and those they support are vitally important when providing intimate care and with encouraging and motivating people when they are experiencing difficulties.

Homecare is going to be such an important part of Christmas this year as families may not be as able to travel to each other and spend the same time together that they are used to doing.  This will mean that the homecare worker may be the only person that someone sees, and their support and company is more crucial now than ever.

My one wish at New Year this time around will be to ask again that social care gets the recognition it deserves, that homecare workers and all social care workers will be looked at and treated with the respect they are entitled to.  Home care and support workers will be treated as the highly skilled professionals they are, many with years of vast experience caring for people and their ability to bring that special comfort to those in pain and in need of support.

Merry Christmas to all of you out in our communities working hard, we see and understand what you manage to achieve and will shout about it as loud as we can until it is fully recognised by everyone.

Caroline Deane

Workforce Policy & Practice Lead

 

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Homecare Day 20 – National Director Blog

Homecare Day is a place for celebration and we need look no further than the incredible stories from our social care workforce in pandemic response.

I heard a fitting metaphor for the current experience as being referred to as a natural disaster. After an earthquake or hurricane, you can’t instantly build new and better, you must first clear away the rubble and heal the cracks.

This is a story told by the voices of women and men I have spoken to over these last months of pandemic response.

I want you to take a deep breath before you read this, use their words to paint the picture. This is the story of the forgotten social care workforce.

“I’m worried I am spreading the virus, how would I know” “I don’t think you get tested unless you’re a celebrity”

“Other healthcare professionals look like stormtroopers I’m struggling to get paper masks, it’s like we’re not important”

“We’re only getting paid per planned for the first 24 hrs, how do I support and keep my staff? Their hours are now all over the place”

“Oh yes there is guidance, but it’s everywhere, there is nothing good enough that is specifically for us. If only they asked us”

“I come home from work and my kids run to give me a hug but I have to hold back. I have to strip off, put the clothes in the machine and shower before I can hug them safely. They’re too little to understand. It’s breaks my heart every day”

“I think she would just love to see everyone, she’s been on a downer hasn’t been eating or anything. Today she’s broken down and cried the whole time I’ve been here. How do I leave her like that?”

This is the hidden story of the pain, loss and isolation of an entire workforce, a workforce that must be increasingly recognised for their skills and expertise, for their loyalty and for their humanity.

And all of this sits in a pre -existing landscape of challenge and power imbalance: undermining procurement contracts which hinder fair work practice and restrict innovation. A crowded landscape of data and technology where limited vision and investment on a national scale risks limiting the potential of social care. And, a move away from the preventative model of care and support as we see a rising eligibility criteria and much later access to care and support to a point of crisis.

Many of our workfore have experienced trauma and grief. We hear a lot of conversations about resilience, but that is simply not sustainable. People are exhausted. Personally, and as a sector need to acknowledge our pain, embrace our emotions, support and be supported to work our way through. We need to focus on what we were able to do, how we are able to support each other. That is how we progress, that is how we heal.

Without recognising and challenging this landscape, we will not be able to rebuild.

Yet, in many ways, pandemic response has brought us closer together. With people who access care and support and with our colleagues. But it goes beyond. A rather interesting reflection is that one of the lowest reported challenges reported in the recent CI report on homecare is the relationship between providers and HSCPS. Indeed in some parts of Scotland, there has been a real feeling that integration has extended to include the totality of the social care sector.

The theory of Disruptive innovation “Creates a new market and value network which overtakes the existing market… It is where innovation and a change in value-base disrupts complex systems.”[1] We saw this for instance with the invention of the Model T Ford motorcar and the home computer.

It is not so much that our vision is different, but that pandemic response has been the opportunity to see that shift from the fringes to the mainstream. A glimmer of understanding of the critical role of social care. Where choice and control is available to everyone as it should be in the human rights based delivery model that we aspire to.

Social care is our route to staying in our communities, but it also supports and enables us to connect and if not bound by time and task can be used to introduce many kinds of support which will reduce decline, enabling us to contribute to and be part of our societies for longer.

We thought that the Self-Directed Support Act and the Integration Act would pave the way for new models of care, but all along there has been missing a shared vision and focus and understanding of the potential of the sector as a whole. We have, consciously or not, been constrained by traditional boundaries and a habit of thinking that improvement means putting more things in place instead of thinking about what needs to be removed.

The impact of coronavirus has been to reduce our focus solely on a combined effort towards pandemic response. In some places, that has cut through silos and issues of power to build relationships. An experience which offers the best use of the resources that we have available to us and looks to implement them in the context of human rights. It is now critical to harness that before we remember how things used to be:

  • We have seen partner organisations come together to support each other in infection prevention control and in training provision and access to staffing.
  • Market disrupting activities such as consortium purchasing to tackle the over inflated costs of PPE, including working with local distilleries across Scotland to divert production from (sorry folks), gin, to hand sanitizer and tackling HMRC to downgrade the tax to make this viable.
  • The development of and the introduction of Near Me to allow for remote consultation with healthcare professionals.
  • Many other technological advancements in terms of connectivity such as an arts programme produced and developed by organisations such as luminate.
  • Working with Glasgow university on a project to use mobile of 5G vans to allow for training in PPE using virtual reality.
  • And critically, grown out of a highlighted understanding that data is a weakness across the sector, different ways of collecting and sharing data, alongside a desire to trial a shift towards citizen owned data.

I spoke earlier about trauma and how to navigate through and we can apply the same method here. Now is our opportunity to make real and substantial change. We must all take some time to reflect not only on our roles in pandemic response, but also what helped to get us through. Write it down, keep it with you to draw on that strength going forward. Celebrate your tenacity, strength and dedication.

But I would also ask you to apply this process across the health and social care sector, write down what has worked for you personally, for your organisation and for the system. Talk about that, share it, tweet it, raise it as part of homecare celebration day. We have learned so much in 2020 yet there is still more to learn. Disruptive innovation gives our workforce the opportunity to take us there.

 

Karen Hedge

National Director, Scottish Care

References

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

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News release: Homecare Day 2020 – 9 December

The contribution of homecare support is to be celebrated across the UK

Wednesday 9 December will see an online campaign raising awareness of the crucial role of care at home and housing support services in supporting older and vulnerable citizens across the UK.

Home Care Day aims to celebrate what home care services do, the people that work in them and the achievements of those supported at home. The day also seeks to facilitate wider discussions on the future of home care and what services should look like.

The day is supported by two leading care bodies, Scottish Care and United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA), who are calling for organisations and individuals across the UK to join them on social media in raising the profile and value of home care support using the hashtag #homecareday.

Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care, said:

“Throughout the pandemic thousands of women and men have left their homes every dayto go out and care for and support others. They are the heart of our homecare sector and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. This day is an opportunity to recognise their dedication and professionalism every day of the week, regardless of weather, risk or fear. Homecareservices allow people to remain independent for as long as possible in their own home. This years’ theme highlights the way that through such professional work homecare helps to foster and create real community. The homecare sector shows us caring and compassion at its best. It is the responsibility of all of us from government down to individual to recognise this contribution and to adequately resource and reward this dedication.”

Jane Townson, CEO of UKHCA, added:  

“Homecare workers have demonstrated outstanding care, kindness and dedication throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to their hard work, homecare has proved itself a relatively safe option. Many people have been supported to live well at home which has given families peace of mind when they were restricted from visiting themselves. Investing in homecare improves lives and saves money for the health and care system. We will continue to press governments in all of the UK administrations to recognise the value of homecare to society, including its direct and indirect contributions to the economy, and fund it adequately.”