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Care at Home & Housing Support Conference, Exhibition & Awards – 2 weeks to go!

#practicalpromise
#homecare18

The countdown is well and truly on to the National Care at Home & Housing Support Conference, Exhibition & Awards 2018.

In just a fortnight hundreds of delegates will be arriving at the Marriott Hotel in Glasgow to the unique event – the only one of its kind to focus solely on the Care at Home and Housing Support sector. So ahead of the big day, we thought we’d take the opportunity to tell you a little bit more about one of the key contributors – The Glasgow School of Art.

They’ve agreed to take on the creative project of imagining an alternative future for the sector – and on the 18th of May we’ll all be able to see and hear more details on the resulting vision.

Design researchers from the Innovation School at The Glasgow School of Art have been working with Scottish Care and care at home staff to creatively explore the future of care at home. Researchers have been exploring with staff the objects, technologies and ideas that will impact the sector in the future in order to co-create a series of possible scenarios based on trends from the present. The scenarios include possible new roles for care at home, new ways of working and a set of emerging social, technological, political and environmental themes. The scenarios and tools resulting from the research give form to the future and aim to support Scottish Care and others to consider how Care at Home as a sector might prepare for future possibilities and help to continue this creative exploration of care at home, allowing transformative ideas to emerge.

Dr Tara French from the GSA, who is part of the team collaborating on this unique project said:

“The challenges facing the care at home sector are well known and the immediate needs for the ‘here and now’ are clear. Looking to how the sector might change in the future can be difficult to imagine while trying to ‘keep the lights on’ in the face of increasing pressures. In our collaborative project we supported care providers and frontline staff to creatively explore a future vision for care at home using our design innovation approach. Our design methods offered a way to integrate perspectives across the sector, transform challenges into areas of opportunity based on current trends and make tangible the way in which care at home could change in the future. Our approach and outcomes aim to build capacity in the sector and enable Scottish Care to continue this conversation by engaging a wider audience to collectively shape and progress a preferable vision for care at home in Scotland.”  

Book your tickets to conference to hear more about this project and take part in many other conversations at the cutting edge of the Care at Home and Housing Support sector at this crucial time.

Practical Promise: Making the vision of home care real is about addressing the issues that are impacting on our members and the wider sector.
To view the full programme and to learn more about the exhibition and awards please use the buttons below.

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Scottish Care criticises new Digital Health & Care Strategy

Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy – Enabling, Connecting and Empowering has been released today to strong criticism from Scottish Care, the representative body for independent social care services in Scotland.

The sector body expressed their profound concerns about the Strategy’s contents, specifically its failure to recognise the crucial role of the independent care sector which delivers the vast majority of care in Scotland and employs over half of the total social services workforce.

CEO Dr Donald Macaskill said:

“The failure to include the independent care sector as a partner in the new digital strategy is breathtakingly insular and a huge missed opportunity. In doing so, the real dynamic, technical and digital innovation happening in social care has been ignored.

“Instead, the Strategy seems to focus on statutory bodies ‘getting their house in order’ before extending to other parts of the health and social care sector. In reality, the vision of the Strategy can only be achieved by true partnership with the third and independent sector from the outset.

“After all, this sector supports 90% of all care home residents in Scotland and delivers over 60% of all home care hours. An effective health and social care system simply cannot be realised without this sector’s meaningful involvement.

“It is hugely disappointing and indeed dangerous that the Scottish Government continues to dismiss the contribution of care providers despite all the ways in which it relies on them to support Scotland’s most vulnerable citizens.”

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One month to GDPR

An update and reminder notice on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Current Data Protection Legislation

Currently anyone who uses and stores information about people who use their services, suppliers or their workforce must ensure that the data is held in accordance with the Data Protection Act (DPA), but this is changing to allow for changes in our ‘digital age’, and conformity across the EU.

Changes to Legislation

The GDPR comes into effect from 25 May 2018 and it is likely that it will affect all of our members as it applies to anyone who stores or processes another’s personal information.
It follows the same principles as the DPA, but with additional requirements on storage, consent, privacy and access. It includes the following rights:

  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right to rectification
  • The right to erasure
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to data portability
  • The right to object
  • The right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling.

Key Terms

A ‘Data Processor’ is a person who processes data, and the term may apply to the majority of your staff as it includes someone who will look at, contribute to or store data. They will need to know about GDPR.

The person who is responsible for compliance with GDPR and principles is called the ‘Data Controller’. All organisations who process personal information will need to nominate someone to this role.

What do I need to do?

Here’s a short overview of some steps which should be taken. This is not an exhaustive list:

  • Appoint or nominate a Data Controller
  • Write a policy explaining your Privacy Policy, why you hold information, why you may have it in different formats (e.g. paper and digital), how you will address the rights listed above and what happens in the event of a data breach (escalation and notification). Make sure this is available and visible.
  • Write and act upon your digital strategy to ensure data is stored using encrypted hardware, and software which is GDPR compliant (most big software providers should already). Be careful of USB pens.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) enforce data protection so are the experts on compliance. They have easy-to-read materials available for free, as well as a handy helpline to ensure that you are GDPR ready (number below).

They have produced a 12 step guide to preparing for GDPR:

https://storage.googleapis.com/scvo-cms/media/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf

As well as more detailed guidelines which are available here:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

Data Breach

Any data breach needs to be reported to the The ICO within 72 hrs, as well as anyone affected. They are the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights. Non-reporting can lead to a fine.

Information and support

For further information and support, please contact the ICO directly
https://ico.org.uk
ICO Helpline: 0303 123 1113

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Congratulations to our 2018 Care Awards finalists!

We are delighted to announce the finalists in this year's Care at Home & Housing Support Awards. The standard of 2018 entries was very high, making the judges' task extremely difficult. Thank you to all who submitted nominations.

Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, hosted by Michelle McManus on the evening of 18 May 2018 at the Marriott Hotel, Glasgow.

Awards tables can be booked by contacting the Scottish Care office.

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Have you booked your insight sessions for the Care at Home Conference?

Practical promise: making the vision of home care real

National Care at Home & Housing Support Conference & Exhibition

Less than 4 weeks to go!

Have you chosen your conference insight sessions yet?

Each conference delegate will have the opportunity to attend 2 of the following workshops, all delivered by leaders in the sector working on critical areas of policy, practice and innovation in home care.

Book your tickets now

Book
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Statement on Accounts Commission Annual Report on Local Government.

Scottish Care has consistently highlighted the growing crisis facing social care across Scotland because of chronic underfunding. We are therefore not surprised but nevertheless disappointed to read the latest Annual Report from the Audit Commission on the performance of local government in Scotland.

Most social care in Scotland is funded by local authorities and voluntary and independent providers deliver most of the care and support which is needed. The fact that there has been a substantial reduction in funding for local authorities has immediate consequence for some of our older citizens.

Scottish Care members seek to deliver high quality, rights-based care and support to enable people to live as full a life as possible in both a homely setting and in their own home. This is becoming increasingly impossible to achieve because of the current financial restrictions.

The Accounts Commission report indicates that local authority budgets have seen a real-terms cut of 9.6% over the last eight years. Their warnings that Scotland’s aging population and demographic changes are increasing the strain on services is something which social care providers know every day to be happening already.

We agree with the Accounts Commission that there are many factors impacting on local government and their ability to adequately fund social care services, not least the concerns around the uncertainty which Brexit is causing.

But alongside the reductions in public spending we are witnessing a sharp rise in demand for social care, coupled with the presumption that families can bear more and more of the burden. If we are going to preserve an already fragile system then we need to think seriously about how we are going to fund care into the future.

The Accounts Commission has warned that without changes that some councils could be spending 80% of their budgets on education and social work alone by 2025-26.

Scottish Care CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill commented:

“Every week we seem to have yet another report highlighting the critical state of our social care system in Scotland. Yet no one seems to be listening or taking any action.

Four months ago in the Scottish Parliament I called for substantial investment into social care of several £100 millions and this was met as if I was asking for the impossible. What we got in the Budget was a £66million increase to partly fund an extensive range of commitments.

We have to stop using social care as a political football and we have to start getting real. Because the reality is that more and more of our vulnerable citizens are not getting the care they deserve. The reality is that hundreds of people are leaving jobs in social care every month because they don’t feel valued and suitably rewarded. The reality is that we are trying to care for more people on less resources.

I want to stop reading reports which describe a real crisis in care and start to see intentions and investment which speak of a society which wants to care, protect and support the most vulnerable. For that to happen we need urgent political action rather than empty rhetoric. We need cross political party working rather than factionalism. It is easy to find someone to blame – it is much harder to work together to address a crisis. ”

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Prevention is the best care: Latest blog from our CEO

Prevention is the best care: the potential of prevention

In almost every strategy on health and social care in Scotland which you come across these days the two concepts of ‘prevention’ and ‘self-management’ are likely to appear somewhere. They are the aspirational essence of the modern health and care economy. Yet in reality for all the talk there has been little substance added to their mention.

In public health the mantra of prevention has been assiduously articulated. We know the success of preventative approaches in terms of smoking and the significant decline in diseases of the lung as a consequence. We also consciously recognise the benefits of anti-obesity campaigns and attempts to limit sugar intake even if we don’t always follow them. But in the realm of social care ‘prevention’ is often a political and policy mantra which carries little meaning and certainly not one which is currently deserving of resource commitment.

Last year Becca Gatherum in her report for Scottish Care, Bringing Home Care,articulated a vision of care at home which was firmly grounded in the principle of preventative approaches, was rooted in robust research including that of the LifeCurve and which evidenced real individual and societal benefit.

So what do we mean by prevention in social care? Put simply they are those models and approaches which prevent an individual from either early or unnecessary access to enhanced care, hospitalisation or sharper personal physical decline and deterioration. They are approaches which enable independent living for a longer period of time and are focussed on maintaining a higher quality of life and wellbeing. They are about maximising autonomy and control. And yes, significantly they are not only about personal benefit but providing an economic and societal benefit through the avoidance of expensive clinical and especially surgical intervention. Falls prevention is perhaps the best exemplar of the promise and potential of preventative social care.

Yet nearly a year on from the Scottish Care report I see no evidence of any Integrated Joint Board robustly taking up the vision of preventative care. Well strictly speaking that might not be true. There is ‘talk’ of prevention and there are some attempts to use technology enabled care to initiate some developments. Such approaches which use technology to map and monitor decline and physical change in a person have real benefit but without being part of a bigger prevention strategy they can only go part of the way.

In fact it might even be that we are causing damage to truly effective preventative models by some of our proposals and plans. I have seen in recent weeks some horrendous proposals appearing before IJBs which predicate savings based on reducing care home provision on the basis of using technology and assuming a non-existent robust and coherent homecare system which is enabled to undertake even more advanced clinical support in the community. This is dangerous thinking not deserving even of the mirage of planning and threatens not only individual harm but also any serious attempt to systematically reform the health and social care system.

A holistic model of preventative social care maximises the benefits of technology rather than uses it to replace human presence, professional judgement and instinctive experience.

Yet maybe it is not surprising that we have failed to see the adequate resourcing of preventative approaches – because they are initially costly and because you cannot remove advanced homecare at the same time.

Surely the time has come for us to not only to talk the talk around prevention but to be brave and start to walk the talk? It is time for someone somewhere to invest substantially in a model of preventative homecare AT THE SAME TIME as maintaining and building enhanced homecare. They are reciprocal and inter-dependent processes. The one cannot exist without the other. Prevention cannot be used as a replacement for person-led, rights-based, dignified care. You cannot achieve the beneficial outcomes of preventative approaches without initial investment – just ask any public health specialist!

Social care in Scotland urgently needs a sense of political vision which goes beyond bandaging the present system and dares to heed its own mantras and invests in real preventative social care.

Dr Donald Macaskill
@DrDMacskill

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Creative activities in care settings: survey from Luminate

Luminate - Scotland’s creative ageing organisation – needs your help.  They are trying to find out more about creative activities taking place in care settings in Scotland.  

Following 6 successful nationwide creative ageing festivals, Luminate are now developing a year-round programme and they really need your help to shape this work.  Planned activities across Scotland include artists residencies, a national arts in care seminar and regular training with artists working in care settings, but to do this well the Luminate team needs to know more about what’s already happening, what strengths they should be building on and where the gaps are.

You can help them by filling in this short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/LumMapSC.

 The team are keen to hear from anyone who knows about the work that’s going on in Scottish care settings – including care staff, volunteers, artists, residents, friends and family members.  Duplicate information isn’t a problem as Luminate will sort that out when they review everything that’s sent.

The survey should take no more than a few minutes to complete, and the deadline for responses is 28th April.  To thank you for your time Luminate will invite you to enter into a prize draw to win a £50 Amazon voucher.

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact Luminate at [email protected] / 0131 668 8066.

 

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Scottish Care statement on delayed discharge

In January Scottish Care published research which highlighted the crisis which is facing Scotland’s home care services. We warned then and re-iterate the message again today that the survival and sustainability of homecare in Scotland is under serious threat because of the lack of sufficient investment. See

Our January survey showed that:

• Nearly 40% of care at home services handed work back to Local Authorities in 2017 on the basis of sustainability and capacity
• Half of home care services did not apply for contracts offered by their Local Authority in 2017 on the same grounds
• 86% of home care services are concerned about their sustainability and survival in 2018, with nearly a quarter extremely concerned
• 9 in 10 home care services are struggling to recruit staff for essential posts.

Scottish Care’s Chief Executive, Dr Donald Macaskill commented:

“The data released by Scottish Labour is concerning. Behind every statistic there is a story, for every day spent unnecessarily in hospital there is a lost opportunity for some of our most vulnerable citizens to be spending time at home with their family and friends. Often these are individuals in palliative care and end of life. Sadly, these statistics come as little surprise to Scottish Care.

There is a real crisis in homecare. Assessments are being delayed, care packages are not being offered, in part because many care providers in both the charitable and private sectors simply cannot deliver quality care on the rates they are being offered. I recently visited someone in hospital and 5 out of the 6 patients in the ward were ready to go home but they could not. That is a shameful waste.

For a long time Scottish Care has been calling for additional investment in social care. We all know the data about delayed discharge but we need to stop talking about statistics. People are stuck in hospital not because care cannot be delivered but because the resource is not being allocated to enable it to be bought. Despite every effort of local authorities to protect social care we have seen year after year a squeeze on the ability of care at home providers to meet the rise in demand and rise in costs.

The home care sector in Scotland is genuinely close to collapse and I am calling on politicians of all parties to work with providers to address these challenges. We will be told that there has been increased investment – well it is simply not enough as any visit to many hospitals will show. I am also deeply concerned that some of the proposed cuts to care home services in some parts of Scotland will see more and more vulnerable people being left unsupported in their own homes without care packages.

We have a huge number of home care services willing and able to provide high quality care in people’s own homes but who are stifled from doing so by a drive to the bottom because of a lack of resources. The inability of services to recruit and retain staff and to pay them a good wage further cripples these essential services. We are faced with a reality where a quarter of services are not sure they will still be operating this time next year.

We can no longer tinker around the edges of social care – the challenge needs to be grasped with both hands and driven forward by a political will to ensure there are a range of high quality, sustainable services available in people’s communities which will allow people to go home.

This holiday weekend when families come together we need to collectively address the underfunding of social care in Scotland which means that for too many often frail and elderly individuals they will be spending the Easter weekend in hospital rather than at home.”

Ends.

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2018 Social Services Awards – finalists announced

The shortlist for the 2018 Scottish Social Services Awards is now available.  Congratulations to all the finalists and those who submitted nominations.

The awards are open to all organisations, services and individuals working in Scotland’s social services and social care sector and attracted over 100 applications nationwide, representing a diverse mix of social services that have made a positive difference to people’s lives.

Introduced last year, the Scottish Social Services Awards aim to cut across boundaries, celebrate excellence and bring one of the country’s largest sectors, with almost 200,000 workers, together.

Scottish Care would particularly like to congratulate our members who have been chosen as finalists in the 2018 awards.  These are:

  • Balhousie Care Group’s Clement Park service, finalist in the Living the Codes category
  • Balhousie Care Group’s Dementia Ambassadors, finalists in the Enlightened Approach category
  • Loretto Care’s Accommodation and Alcohol Support Services, finalists in the Head Above the Parapet category

The winners will be announced at an Awards ceremony on 6 June in Edinburgh.

For more information about the Awards and finalists, click here.