A media statement issued by Scottish Care regarding public funding of care homes:

Scottish Care spent 2017 warning about a growing crisis facing the care home sector. It is already clear that 2018 is showing signs of these warnings coming true. We are not exaggerating – the care home sector in Scotland is on the brink. It has never before faced such challenges to its sustainability and survival. Care homes across Scotland are facing a nurse shortage challenge with 31% of posts vacant; they are struggling to recruit care workers not least because of the relatively low wages they are able to pay. Whether a care home is run by a family, a charity or a private organisation, the majority are telling us that they are deeply concerned about their survival in 2018.

We have got to move the care of our most vulnerable older citizens from being an occasional area of debate to something at the heart of our concerns as a society. This should not be about party politics but about us all sitting around the table to create a sector worthy of our society. Part of that means we have to stop talking down care homes and start to celebrate their contribution.
We owe it to the 33,000 residents in care homes to make their care a priority and not just to be arguing over how we can save more money and make efficiencies. We need to honestly decide what the true cost of care is, not what we choose to make it or can afford to pay. Dignity comes at a price, and it is a cost we are not paying at the moment.”

We recognise that the Scottish Government has increased finding to care homes by 13% over the last 3 years. This is, we believe, not sufficient to provide a sustainable care sector in Scotland.

Much has been said in recent days of the Scottish Government commitment to paying ‘private’ providers monies in order for them to pay staff the Scottish Living Wage. This is in part the truth. Scottish Government has partly funded this over the last three years.

The reality is that staff costs including paying senior carers a wage has led to on average a 23-26% increase in staffing costs over the last 3 years for the average provider be they private or charitable. So not only have providers had to make up that difference but they have had to pay for all the other rising costs in terms of heating, lighting, food and so forth.

Now what makes the difference is that unlike any other business, care home providers cannot increase their fees for residents who are paid for by the Government.

It’s a bit like going to a supermarket, telling them what you are willing to pay for your loaf of bread and then telling them what ingredients you want in it and what they have to pay their staff who bake it.

There have also been statements made on the Apprenticeship Levy.  This was effectively a jobs tax introduced by the Westminster Government.  If you have a payroll over a certain amount you have to pay a certain level of tax.  Unlike in England the Scottish Government have not introduced an easy system which enables care providers to access these funds.  One year on, we are still seeing money going out the door with no benefit to the workers involved.

February 2018

Upcoming branch meetings for Scottish Care members

Both featuring important information on the new Health & Social Care Standards.

Ayrshire / Lanarkshire Care at Home/Housing Support branch meeting
Tuesday 13th February, 2pm
Constance Care offices in Thornliebank, 1 Spiersbridge Way, Glasgow G46 8NG.
This meeting is open for all Care at Home & Housing Support providers from Glasgow, East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire, Pan Ayrshire, North and South Lanarkshires,  Argyll and Bute, East and West Dunbartonshire  and surrounding areas.

Key speaker is Claire Drummond, Service Manager (Adults) with the Care Inspectorate, who will outline the new Health and Social Care Standards that are being introduced this April.  These will replace the current National Care Standards which means this is a meeting you cannot afford to miss.

Of particular interest to members will be an insight into the new inspection methodology that the Care Inspectorate will adopt with the aim of better reflecting the standards that they will be looking for during inspections.

Venue address:

Constance Care

Thornliebank

1 Spiersbridge Way,

Glasgow G46 8NG

Please contact Swaran Rakhra [email protected] to confirm attendance.  Maximum of two per organisation due to the size of the venue.

West of Scotland Care Home branch meeting
Tuesday 27 February 2018 , 2pm
Royal Blind Care Home, Paisley
You are invited to Scottish Care’s West of Scotland Branch (covering Argyll & Bute, West and East Dunbartonshires, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire) and Glasgow Branch joint meeting for care home members being held in conjunction with the Care Inspectorate.

Key speaker is Claire Drummond, Service Manager (Adults) with the Care Inspectorate, who will outline the new Health and Social Care Standards that are being introduced this April. These will replace the current National Care Standards which means this is a meeting you cannot afford to miss.

Of particular interest to members will be an insight into the new inspection methodology that the Care Inspectorate will adopt with the aim of better reflecting the standards that they will be looking for during inspections.

Venue address:

The Royal Blind Care Home

Jenny’s Well

196 Hawkhead Road

Paisley PA2 7BS

Lord Stewart Sutherland of Houndwood, (born February 25, 1941, died January 29th, 2018) 

It is with the deepest sadness that we have to report the death of our former Honorary President, Lord Stewart Sutherland of Houndwood.

Stewart Sutherland was a man of astonishing intellectual breadth and vigour, who wore that intelligence lightly and openly. He was a major contributor to the study of the philosophy of religion, held numerous academic posts both as a teacher and as an administrator, most significantly in his role as Vice Chancellor of Edinburgh University where he had such a dramatic impact. Latterly he was a significant contributor to the work of the House of Lords. Her Majesty the Queen recognised his distinctive gifts and contribution by appointing him to be a Knight of the Order of the Thistle in 2002.

However, he is perhaps best known for his chairing of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care of the Elderly, which issued its report in 1999. Its main recommendation, which was later taken up by the Scottish Government, was that all nursing and personal care should be provided free by the Government. His legacy of Free Personal Care, with its extension to the under 65s in Scotland next year, has been a major contribution to social care in Scotland. He was also amongst the first to call for the alignment of health and social care budgets, together with social security benefits, especially for the elderly.

He was in his engagement with Scottish Care committed to ensuring the development of a properly resourced and funded care system which upheld the rights and dignity of older people in Scotland. He cared about the realities that staff often struggled with the demands of their intensive jobs, and he cared that the lack of resources and funding made the job of care all that harder. In one conversation, I remember him saying to me that the heroes of Scotland are those whose daily task in caring for another goes unheard and unheralded.

We will remember with fondness his gentle and direct chairing of our conferences even whilst ill, his pithy and quiet humour, his willingness to be kept up to date and to be informed about the realities of a care system increasingly under challenge and threat.

A passionate advocate for equality, fairness and a great friend to Scottish Care he will be sorely missed. It was his desire for the creation of a system of care which treats each individual according to their need and which would create a Scotland which had care at its centre, that his friends at Scottish Care will seek to continue to struggle for. His voice may now be silent but his words of wisdom around equality in care echo still in everyone who heard him.

Our thoughts are with his wife Sheena and his family at this time.

Dr Donald Macaskill

CEO, Scottish Care

A fresh warning has been issued to national and local government about the consequences of failing to support home care services across Scotland.

Scottish Care, the representative body for independent providers of social care, is calling for a renewed approach to supporting and funding care at home services in 2018 to prevent the collapse of the sector, which would have a huge impact on many of Scotland’s most vulnerable citizens.

The warning comes on the back of new survey data published by Scottish Care today (THURS 11 JAN) which shows 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

The responses to the survey, which was undertaken in the week before Christmas, represents nearly 6,000 home care staff delivering 133,000 hours of care to over 12,000 people per week.

Scottish Care’s Executive and National Committees will meet today in Glasgow to discuss these findings and their implications for the ongoing care of adults and older people in their own homes.
Speaking ahead of this meeting, Scottish Care CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill, said:

“Unfortunately, these findings only serve to consolidate what we already know and what we have been telling Scottish Government, Health & Social Care Partnerships and commissioners throughout 2017.

“We are not crying wolf when we stress the precarious nature of home care in the current climate, with the results of this survey emphasising how genuinely close to collapse we are in Scotland.

“It shows that half of the services we represent feel unable to compete for contracts because the rates and conditions at which they are set by Local Authority make the delivery of dignified care impossible to sustain. And of those who do try to make it work, 40% are forced to hand that work back because it is not viable to continue operating.

“It means 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 by Local Authorities in terms of pay and conditions offered to those services delivering that care. 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.

“The present crisis being faced by the NHS is being made much worse by the failure to integrate properly, and to dedicate equal resource and focus to social care. 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 also offer attractive careers for the 1 in 13 Scots who are employed in social care.

“If this doesn’t happen now, the consequences are enormous for health and social care, for the economy, for jobs and most importantly, for the tens of thousands of individuals and families who rely on this type of support.

“It is all very well to join up health and social care systems on paper and as structures. But real partnership which puts people at the centre needs to be worked at not just spoken about. We need to work very hard in 2018 to ensure we still have a social care system able to care for our vulnerable older citizens. At the moment this survey suggests that there are worrying signs that we will not.”

To read the full report, click here.