We also hosted a panel discussion, bringing together various visions on the importance of the sector, featuring Graham Abrines (Dumfries & Galloway HSCP), Emma Cummings (Inverclyde HSCP), Wendy Jack (West Dunbartonshire HSCP) and Fiona Pirrie (East Ayrshire Carers Centre). 

Additionally, delegates were able to tap into a number of issues through our breakout insight sessions, including:

Palliative and end of life care at home – Workforce Matters

Integrate, innovate, imitate: sharing good practice – Partners for Integration & Improvement

Registration: making it work for you - SSSC 

Inspecting care at home services in the context of the new standards: our new quality framework & methodology – Care Inspectorate

Spiritual care is everybody’s business – Faith in Older People & Reviewing

Sexuality and dementia: the last taboo – Three Sisters Consultancy & Alzheimer Scotland

For a number of years, Scottish Care has enjoyed a collaborative relationship with documentary film maker Michael Rea. We have been working together to help highlight and showcase the sector, as well as provide insight into the realities and challenges of working in care at home. With this in mind, we embarked on a fresh project with Michael in the run up to conference and the result is a new film titled A Day in the Life of Home Care. Huge thanks to Stewartry Care in Dalbeattie and Carrick Home Care Services in Edinburgh for their involvement in the creation of this documentary – we hope you agree it is a fantastic and truthful portrayal of the home care sector.

2018 saw the largest Care at Home and Housing Support Exhibition to date, with 30 exhibitor stands on the day during the main conference. We were delighted to welcome back many of our supporters who have been involved with previous Scottish Care events, as well as introduce some new exhibitors to our delegates this year. As always, our exhibitors went above and beyond on the day, with a variety of competitions, giveaways and offers available across the event, and delegates enjoyed a lively exhibition to complement a fantastic conference.

The day itself was closely followed on social media with a real buzz around the conference hashtags #practicalpromise and #homecare18. If you are on Twitter and want to catch up on the conversations then be sure to check those out.

All in all, Practical Promise: Making the vision of home care real proved to be hugely successful, bringing together the right people to debate the right topics at the heart of home care and enabling networking in a way that no other event can; because it is the only Scottish event dedicated exclusively to the sector. We hope if you attended you found it useful and enjoyable and we hope to see you all again at a Scottish Care event in the near future.

After the day-time conference and exhibition were done and dusted it was time to get down to the business of celebrating care at home and housing support with our  National CAH & HS Awards 2018. 

The nominees gathered in their finery at the Marriot Ballroom, where they enjoyed a champagne reception and sit down dinner ahead of the main event; the Awards Ceremony which was hosted by the ever-fabulous Michelle McManus. 

The winners to the 11 award categories were announced by our kind sponsors, you can catch up on all the details on who won what here and take a look through some of the celebratory pictures below. Congratulations once again to all our finalists and everyone who submitted a nomination to the awards in 2018, the judges commented that their job was extremely tough and the standards were incredibly high, which is a huge endorsement for our talented and dedicated membership.

All in all, a fantastic night for the 350 attendees, with entertainment from Michelle and the band Waterfront, providing the soundtrack the our feelgood #celebratecare event.

Hope to see you all again in 2018!