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Media Statement: “It Feels Like We Don’t Exist’ – Scottish Care Calls for Urgent Action

“It Feels Like We Don’t Exist”: Scottish Care Reiterates Call for Urgent Action Following Sky News Report  

Scottish Care is deeply concerned with the findings of Sky News’ recent report into the experiences of homecare and housing support providers delivering commissioned care packages, summarised within our Briefing Report.

Specific results from Scottish Care membership are as follows:

  • Over 80% stated that councils have reduced the number of care packages that would previously have been awarded.
  • 90% stated that councils have reduced the overall number of hours commissioned within care packages.
  • Over 90% stated that councils have asked providers’ to complete care tasks that are unrealistic within the commissioned time.

Such reductions place untold stress on the sustainability of vital care providers across Scotland and diminishes access to an adequate level of person-led care. As commissioning and procurement bodies cut packages beyond the true cost of adequate care for our communities, care providers are struggling to stay afloat amongst increasing operational costs:

“For the first time in 27 years I am genuinely scared for our future.” 

Reversing this reduction in service availability is vital, with funding for care providers that is commensurate to the true cost and value of the vital work they do.

Sky News’ report reaffirms the inadequacy of time and task models of commissioning homecare and housing support, typified by 15-minute visits and the lack of person-led care on offer:

“How are carers supposed to provide high quality care if they only have 5 minutes! This is not enough time to take off your jacket let alone assess the persons wellbeing.” 

As opposed to tailored packages that meet the individual needs of service users, carers must complete multiple complex tasks within this narrow timeframe (personal care, medication administration and meal preparation). Increasingly, basic needs cannot be met. Moreover, by removing the vital human element of care, individual citizens feel rushed and undignified.

The results also highlight a breakdown in partnership working between commissioning bodies, providers and service users when making significant decisions regarding the future of a care package:

“We seem to be in a situation where there is no transparency or honesty”. 

The whole adult social care sector must commit to greater communication with providers on any decisions that affect service delivery.

Scottish Care’s recent response to the Scottish Budget describes a “budget that kills”. Sky News report exemplifies this very real risk without sufficient support at all levels of government.

We must address the #SocialCareCrisis in Scotland. This begins with a truly ethical approach to commissioning and procurement that respects the true cost of care, communicates openly with service users and their care providers, and works collaboratively to advance the much needed change away from time and task models of care. These steps are vital to safeguarding a care system that prioritises dignity and delivers high-quality, person-led care.

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Menopause Matters Webinar – 6 February

Scottish Care & alsico – Menopause Matters Webinar 

Exploring Menopause Support in Care Homes (6 February)
1 in 5 care workers say menopause symptoms affect their job performance, and 1 in 10 consider leaving their jobs because of it.

To address this critical issue, Scottish Care is hosting a webinar in collaboration with leading uniform supplier alsico. Building on the success of alsico’s Menopause Matters event at the Care Show last year (learn more here), which brought together some of the UK’s largest care providers—this webinar will focus on practical ways to support staff navigating menopause.

Date: Thursday 6 February
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Teams Webinar

Speakers include:

  • Caroline Deane – Scottish Care
  • Sara Catanzaro – Alsico
  • Flora Neville – Citation
  • Pauline Ritchie – Oakminster Healthcare
  • Alyson Vale – Abbotsford Care
  • Rachel Payne – Bandrum Nursing Home

Topics will cover:

  • Misconceptions about menopause and how to address them
  • The importance of uniform considerations in care homes
  • Exploring practical menopause policies
  • Insights from care home providers implementing menopause-friendly practices

This webinar will share resources, explore ideas, and foster collaboration within Scotland’s care sector to create more supportive workplaces.

Register here

Join us to continue the vital work of improving menopause awareness and support for care workers across Scotland.

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Winter Bulletin 2024

The 2024 Winter Bulletin is now live and brimming with valuable updates, inspiring stories, and highlights from the social care sector. This year’s edition includes a festive feature from pages 26 to 29, showcasing heartwarming stories and creative activities shared by our members. Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this bulletin truly special!

We always welcome your feedback and ideas. If you have thoughts to share or suggestions for future editions, please get in touch at [email protected].

Download bulletin

Winter Bulletin 2024 FINAL-compressed
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Human Rights Day 2024 Blog

Human Rights Day is celebrated globally on December the 10th, the day serves as a powerful reminder to protect fundamental rights for all. In Scotland, organisations like Scottish Care use the occasion to highlight challenges and progress in social care. Scotland also observes this day with organisations, activists, and communities hosting events, discussions, and campaigns to raise awareness about ongoing human rights challenges and celebrating advancements in this field. 

At Scottish Care, we utilise this day to celebrate the amazing work from our members and colleagues championing human rights in their communities. One standout example is the Silver Pride Project, where our colleagues in Ayrshire are contributing to creating safe and inclusive spaces for older LGBT adults living with dementia. It showcases how celebrating the right to freedom of expression can translate into practical change for marginalised communities. 

Scottish Care also celebrates the work of our colleagues in Ethical Commissioning, which emphasises integrating human rights into social care contracting. In 2023, workshops highlighted how current social care procurement models can infringe on the rights of those who access care and support. Recommendations from the subsequent report included making rights-based care a contractual prerequisite and ensuring shared accountability between providers and commissioning bodies. This approach aims to enhance the dignity, independence, and outcomes for those accessing care. 

However, despite these examples, systemic issues persist. For one the Scottish Government’s 2024 Budget. This budget allocated £21 billion to health and social care but failed to provide ring-fenced funding for social care services. Scottish Care’s response to the budget highlighted that this omission places providers under immense financial strain, exacerbated by unaddressed National Insurance increases. We are working actively to address our concern with the Scottish Government.  

Another issue that persists is the pushback of the Human Rights Bill. This Bill was supposed to create a legal framework for the Scottish Government to embed international human rights within domestic law and drive transformative, positive change for people. We responded to the call for consultation of the Bill, though we had concerns we supported the ambitions of the Bill. However earlier this year the Bill was taken out of the 2024-2025 programme for government, with no clear plan of a way forward. 

As part of the Scottish Food Coalition, we are advocating for the reintroduction of the Scottish Human Rights Bill into the Scottish Government’s agenda for this term, through the #BringBackTheBill campaign. The delay in the Bill’s progress has sparked widespread concern amidst worsening economic conditions. This event will unite organisations, grassroots groups, and individuals under the banner #OurRightsOurFuture, urging the government to prioritise human rights protections.  

Demonstration details:  

  • Date: Tuesday, 10 December 2024 
  • Time: 10:00 – 14:00 GMT 
  • Location: Scottish Parliament Building, Edinburgh 
  •  More information is available via Eventbrite 

 

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Statement from Scottish Care on the Scottish Budget 2024: initial response

Scottish Care expresses its deep disappointment and frustration at the glaring omission of clear and targeted support for social care in the Scottish Budget. Despite record investment headlines, this budget has failed to address the urgent sustainability challenges facing the social care sector.

While the Scottish Government has pledged £21 billion for health and social care, the lack of ring-fenced funding for social care services and their workforce highlights a disconnect from the real needs of the sector. Social care providers are already at breaking point, grappling with rising costs, including the significant burden of National Insurance increases, which remain unaddressed. These additional financial pressures will force many care providers to reduce services or close altogether, leaving vulnerable individuals without essential care.

Without a robust and sustainable social care sector, the pressure on the NHS and other services will only escalate. The lack of specific detail and ringfenced funding leads us to conclude that this yet more resource for the NHS without a clear prioritising of funding for social care and its workforce.

The Budget commits to £125 million for delivering the Real Living Wage for social care workers by April 2025. Whilst welcome, this is just one element in meeting the true cost of care. Measures to further progress ethical commissioning, recognise pay differentials and address significant funding shortfalls, alongside urgent relief to mitigate the impact of National Insurance increases on social care employers, are essential to securing the future of the sector. Yet, they remain conspicuously absent from this budget.

The omission is not just a policy failure; it is a profound injustice to the thousands of carers, care providers, and individuals who rely on social care every day. Scottish Care calls on the Scottish Government to urgently revisit its priorities, provide the necessary funding and structural reforms, and take immediate steps to alleviate the damaging impact of rising employer costs. The time for action is now.

Dr Donald Macaskill said:

“This Scottish Budget is even more disappointing than we feared it would be. Scottish Care called for a budget that cares. This is a budget that kills. It will kill any reassurance that the Scottish Government truly values social care, and it will kill essential community services which are forced to close and leave workers without employment. But ultimately, it will kill people. People are dying because they can’t get the social care they need. I hear of services that will need to close and make staff redundant by next week.  This is not good enough.

“The Cabinet Secretary for Finance in Parliament this afternoon said that social care funding is absolutely vital if we are going to tackle delayed discharge and look at the system as a whole across the NHS and social care. Yet this budget represents a continued absolute obsessional focus on the NHS that completely fails to learn the basic lesson that if social care is not able to continue, the NHS and all its targets and priorities are going to fail too. Focus on pay for social care workers becomes meaningless if there is not a sustainable sector for them to work in. The Government needs to listen to the sector and act now.”

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Care at Home & Housing Support Awards 2025 – Entries Now Open!

Submissions are now open for the 2025 National Care at Home and Housing Support Awards! This prestigious event celebrates the outstanding achievements of our dedicated homecare workforce and the individuals they support.

Marking its 19th year, the awards ceremony will take place on Friday 16 May 2025, at Radisson Blu, Glasgow. The event will be hosted by Michelle McManus and our CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill.

Nominations close on Friday 28 February 2025, at 5:00 pm. If you know exceptional individuals, teams, or services, be sure to nominate them.

Find out more about the awards and submit your entries here.

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LGBT & Dementia – Training Resources

Scottish Care’s Independent Sector Lead for East Ayrshire, Arlene Bunton, has been recognised for her outstanding work in LGBT and Dementia care, recently winning the ‘Best Inclusive Dementia Care in Our Diverse Society’ award from Dementia Community at a gala lunch in Sheffield. Find out more about this achievement here.

Arlene has also been collaborating with Stirling University to develop a new resource aimed at frontline workers. This resource is set to launch on 27 February, with further details to be shared in early December.

In the meantime, an introduction taster resource has been created. See the document below for more information, with QR codes to different resources. Those who complete it can email Arlene to receive a certificate and badges by post! Please feel free to share this resource widely.

Download the taster resource here

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Partners for Integration: Influencing Change: Inform, Collaborate, Innovate – Event Flash Report

Partners for Integration recently held a successful event in Glasgow on 8th October focusing on “Influencing Change: Inform, Collaborate, Innovate”.

The event successfully emphasised Scottish Care’s and the Partners for Integration team’s crucial roles in promoting collaboration and innovation across Scotland.

We are delighted to publish a flash report for the event, have a read through to gain deeper insights into the impactful discussions shared and access presentation slides.

Download the report

PFI event flash report
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Media Release: ‘A Budget That Cares’

A Budget That Cares’ – Urgent Action Required to Support Scotland’s Social Care Sector

Scottish Care, the representative body of the independent social care sector across Scotland, is calling on both the UK and Scottish Government to take immediate action to protect Scotland’s social care sector. The recent UK Budget, with its increase in National Insurance contributions, will place an unbearable burden on social care providers who are already at breaking point. The Scottish Government must prioritise social care in its upcoming budget to safeguard these vital services, care and support workers, and to ensure long-term sustainability.

Key Asks

  1. Mitigate National Insurance Impact
    The UK Government’s National Insurance increase imposes severe financial pressure on social care providers, risking closures across the sector.
  • Ask to the UK Government: Exempt social care services from the National Insurance increase.
  • Ask to the Scottish Government: Provide relief funding through upcoming budget to offset costs and prevent sector collapse.
  1. Address Funding Shortfalls
    Current funding levels are insufficient to cover rising costs for wages, energy, food, and insurance.
  • Ask to the Scottish Government: Allocate ring-fenced funding for social care providers to pay their staff a fair wage, meet rising costs, and maintain quality care.
  1. Support the Social Care Workforce
    Social care workers are undervalued and underpaid, resulting in high turnover rates and recruitment challenges.
  • Ask to the Scottish Government: Invest in fair wages, staff differentials, and improved terms and conditions to attract and retain skilled workers.
  1. Reform Commissioning Practice
    Procurement systems often undermine sustainability and fairness in social care delivery
  • Ask to the Scottish Government: Implement ethical commissioning practises that prioritise person-centred care, transparent, and sustainable approaches.

Urgent Need for Action

The UK Budget’s National Insurance increase could have devastating consequences for the social care sector. Almost half of the care home and home care organisations surveyed by Scottish Care indicated that they might have to close services as a result of this increase. This would ripple through the sector, causing widespread job losses and limiting access to care for those who need it most. Underfunded and understaffed providers will struggle to deliver high-quality care, forcing more people to rely on already overburdened NHS hospitals and healthcare services.

A Call for Collaboration

Scottish Care calls on the Scottish Government, opposition parties and all stakeholders to work together to ensure a sustainable future for social care in Scotland. This requires significant investment, structural change, and a renewed commitment to the value of care.

More details are available on the A Budget that Cares: Key Social Care Requirements for the Scottish Budget 2024 Paper: https://scottishcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/A-Budget-That-Cares.pdf

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Care Home Awards 2024 – Winners Announced!

The Scottish Care National Care Home Awards 2024 took place on Friday 15 November 2024 at the Hilton, Glasgow, celebrating excellence and dedication in the care sector.

Hosted by the wonderful Michelle McManus and Dr Donald Macaskill, the evening was filled with celebration, inspiration, and heartfelt moments.

Huge congratulations to all our amazing finalists and winners!  A special thanks to our Awards Sponsors, for supporting the event, and all who made the night so memorable. Thank you also to the Nursing Partnership for sponsoring the drinks reception and Howden for sponsoring the raffle draw.

Find out more about the finalists in our Awards Programme.

💙 Let’s continue to #CelebrateCare! #CareAwards24