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Home Care Day: Guest blog from Meal Makers

Meal Makers, the project bringing neighbours together through food

Preventative home care support is also about identifying the additional support needs of individuals and signposting them to additional and innovative ways in which they can have these needs met.  Often, these needs relate to nutrition and companionship.  Here we share one way in which home care and community initiatives can work in partnership to best support individuals.

Do you like the idea of a friendly neighbour bringing round a lovely home cooked meal and stopping in for a chat? If you do, then it is about time you heard about Meal Makers!

Meal Makers bring together people who love cooking and their community (‘Cooks’), with older neighbours who would appreciate having some delicious home-cooked food delivered to them (‘Diners’).  Meals are most commonly shared on a weekly basis, but they can occur fortnightly, monthly or just now and again - how often meals are shared, and when they are shared is decided between the Cook and Diner. There is no cost for receiving meals, the only cost associated with Meal Makers is a £5 annual membership fee.

The community food sharing project was originally launched as a pilot in Dundee in August 2014 and proved to be an instant hit across the city. It has since been launched in Glasgow, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Stirling, Scottish Borders and North Ayrshire.

People across Scotland are loving being a part of Meal Makers, as they have been making great friends and eating delicious food through the project. If you are interested in joining Meal Makers then get in touch and they will match you with a Cook who likes the same food as you and lives within your local community, or if you would be happy to cook an extra portion and would like to volunteer please contact them on:

0800 783 7770 or [email protected]

Here is what some Cooks and Diners have to say about the project:

“Maggie makes some really delicious dishes, but it isn’t just about the food, it’s about friendship, too. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s something I really look forward to each week. It’s strange to think that a year ago we didn’t know each other, yet now we’re good neighbours.” Pam – Diner

“I was so nervous when I delivered the first meal to my diner, Edith, in case she didn’t like it. In fact, she has turned out to be an adventurous diner who likes most of the same things as me despite our 60 year age gap!” Nancy – Cook

“What a great service meal makers is. I really enjoyed my chats with Rosaline and the food she is providing is fantastic.” Alice - Diner

#homecare17

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Home Care Day: Guest blog from Susan Kelso, Early Intervention Lead

How the Lifecurve™ can encourage active and independent living

I started out my adult working life as a care assistant in an Eventide Home – as they were called back then.  Our residents were much fitter than people living in care homes or being supported by care at home staff today.  At training sessions we used to speak about ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ work – where the former was about tasks and activities that were easy to identify and describe – often involving ‘doing things’ for people or carrying out ‘housekeeping’ tasks.  Whereas work described as ‘invisible’ was much harder to describe and define – often because it was very individual to each resident and tended to be about the relationship you had with the person and what mattered to them.  It often involved stepping back and having a conversation.  Not easy to quantify or see as immediately being ‘busy’!

Today we recognise the value of having conversations with people – finding out what matters to them, finding out how best to support them with whatever that is.  This forms the basis of current policy around building community and individual strengths for health and wellbeing, and underpins legislation which puts the person at the heart of health and social care.  And yet, with pressures on hospital services – both planned and emergency – all too often staff supporting people can find themselves still ‘doing to’ with tasks and activities for the person.

I decided to train as an AHP whilst working in my first job, and have subsequently worked in both health and social care.  I am now working in Scottish Government as the national AHP Lead for Early Intervention.  This is an exciting post as it gives me the opportunity to carry on work I have been involved in for about 9 years – how to give people personalised help, information, advice and signposting to enable them to be as active and independent as possible for as long as possible.  Of course ageing is inevitable, but how we age is not – we can shape how we age – with the right information, advice and support we can make the most of our circumstances and keep active, healthy and independent which will help us have a better experience of ageing.  This is a major theme of our AHP national Active and Independent Living Programme (AILP).  By finding out where people are on their own Lifecurve™ – by asking which of the 15 activities of daily living they can or can’t do without help - we will have better conversations with people about what matters to them in keeping active, healthy and independent.  We can then work in partnership - with people themselves and with colleagues across the sectors to support people with the right kind of intervention – including what kind of support people want at the end stages of their life.

It is very exciting to see Scottish Care collaborating with the Lifecurve™ work – the results that you will add to the existing 15,000 responses will really help shape health and social care services – so they are focussed on individuals and what matters to them – and encourages active, healthy and independent living for as long as possible.

Susan Kelso

AHP Lead Early Intervention (Scottish Government)

@susankelsoAHP

#homecare17

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Home Care Day: Guest blog from Karen Reid, Care Inspectorate

Achieving high quality care

It is important to highlight the good work that is being done in care at home and housing support services across Scotland and I am pleased to support the inaugural Home Care Day and, in particular, to be initiating today with a focus on high quality care.

We all recognise how important it is to enhance lives and improve wellbeing for a wide range of people. It is also important that we can enable and support people to live well in their own homes and be part of their local community.

High quality care is about listening to the needs of the people we care for and about providing the best possible experience. High quality care is about supporting improvement and working in partnership to support new models of care. And, for the Care Inspectorate, high quality care is about working with providers and many others, to provide public assurance to people and communities.

Scotland’s new Health and Social Care Standards enable us to achieve this. Rather than being relevant (just) in regulated services, the new Health and Social Care Standards are relevant across all health and social care provision. They are significantly more rights-based and outcome-focused than the standards which were developed some 15 years ago. The keen focus on human rights and wellbeing is one of the features that make the Health and Social Care Standards unique and innovative, something that will support good care.

As the Care Inspectorate develops new approaches to scrutiny and improvement, the Health and Social Care Standards will play an important role in our wider work on inspecting care and reporting on the difference it is making for people. We will use the new standards to continue to champion high quality care wherever we find it and to work closely with providers and support them to improve, where needed.

We are currently developing a new inspection framework which will use the standards to set out the impact we expect care to have, and the key enablers of good care we expect to be in place. Our inspection framework will be clearer about what we expect to see in different service types and will be capable of being used for self-evaluation by care providers too.

I am sure that you will now be getting familiar with these new standards and thinking about what these mean for you, those that you care for and overall quality and service provision. Our expectation is that from April 2018, all care services, social work services, local authorities, integration joint boards, community planning partnerships and community justice authorities will take account of the new standards when planning, commissioning and delivering high quality services. To support good care, over the next year, we will continue to work with providers, commissioners and Scotland’s committed and skilled social care workforce.

The new Standards will form the basis of our future inspections but they are not just designed for scrutiny. They are explicitly designed to support the way services are planned, commissioned, and delivered, and to be used in supporting improvement too.

To me, the Standards will support high quality care by helping to reinforce that assessment of quality is not be whether a minimum standard is met but whether the experience and outcomes for people are positive. I would like our partnership working to enable services to creatively solve problems and to improve through innovation.

I hope Home Care Day will be a huge success and I will be following today’s discussions with interest.

Karen Reid
Chief Executive, Care Inspectorate

#homecare17

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Home Care Day: A caregiver’s perspective on good care

To celebrate good care as part of Home Care Day 2017, we share an interview with one of Home Instead Glasgow North’s CAREGivers Ines Garcia-Pena

Ines Garcia Pena has been a CAREGiver at Home Instead Senior Care Glasgow North now for just over six months. She’s providing vital support for seven of our regular clients who she’s visiting several times a week.
Ines goes out and cares for our lovely clients in their own homes, helping them with everything from companionship to help around the house and personal care.
All of this enables them to stay independent for much longer ensuring a better quality of life.
Here at Home Instead Senior Care, we focus on a personal and friendly experience and we want to be so much more than just a service. We want to be that person our clients look forward to seeing every day and Ines plays a huge role in achieving that.

What did you do prior to starting with Home Instead?

In my native country of Venezuela, I was an employment solicitor and I used to negotiate collective agreements and arbitrate conflicts between employers and employees/unions.
Here in Scotland, I have mainly been a full-time mum to my two daughters, although a couple of years ago I worked in the care sector looking after at risk children and young adults.

Why did you decide to be a home care worker?

I wanted to help our clients to have the best quality of life possible and I firmly believe that there is nothing that can guarantee this as much as continuing to live in their home amongst all familiar surroundings and treasured memories.

What does your job mainly involve?

Some of my clients require personal assistance, i.e. Bathing and dressing, whereas for others I support with meals preparation or companionship. As the care provided by Home Instead is individualised according to the needs or requirement of each of our clients, no two shifts or days are ever the same.

Are your clients able to get out and about when you’re not visiting them?

Most of my clients have beautiful families that look after them, take them out to various places and if possible on holidays.
There is one very regular client who insists on going out in whatever weather to get her shopping, she loves her independence and her ability to still take care of herself!

Do you prefer being a home care worker, rather than working in a care home?

Of course! People are always happier at home.

What is the best thing about being a home care worker?

There are many things, but I think for me is the privilege of getting to know them and to share their memories with me. They have such wonderful stories to tell, I love just sitting down and listening to their experiences, adventures and life in general.
Being a CAREGiver for Home Instead has enriched my life in so many ways and getting to know these incredible individuals has been a true honour.

 

#homecare17

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What a Difference Good Care Makes

To celebrate Home Care Day, Scottish Care is relaunching our film, What a Difference Good Care Makes. 

Directed by Michael Rea, the film features people in receipt of care services and their families, as well as those providing care. It showcases the difference that home care support can make to individuals, as well as highlighting the relationships that are built between individuals and care staff.

The film was initially launched at Scottish Care's annual Care at Home and Housing Support Conference and Exhibition in May 2017. 

 

What a Difference Good Care Makes

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Welcome to Home Care Day!

Wednesday 25 October sees Scottish Care, our members and partners celebrate the crucial role of home care services.

Throughout today we hope to celebrate and raise awareness of Scotland’s care at home and housing support services – the individuals who access this support, those who work in the community and the opportunities home care services offer to enhance lives and improve wellbeing for a wide range of people and to support people to live well in their own homes.

We’ll be celebrating different elements of home care life each hour:

  • 9am – Good Care
  • 10am – Prevention
  • 11am – Extraordinary Lives
  • 12pm – Vision
  • 1pm – Workforce
  • 2pm – Commissioning
  • 3pm – Palliative and End of Life Care
  • 4pm – Politics & Policy
  • 7pm - SDS & Human Rights
  • Plus more activity into the evening.

This day is an opportunity to share good news stories and promote the positive things that services and their local communities are doing.

Please do join in with us in celebrating Home Care Day - you can tweet using the hashtag #homecare17 or send your good news stories to [email protected]

You can follow all the action from today at: https://www.scottishcare.org/home-care-day/

The page will be updated each hour with new content.

Happy Home Care Day 2017!

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Scottish Care comments on Care Inspectorate Report on Workforce Shortages

The Care Inspectorate has published a report ‘Staff Vacancies in Care Services 2016’

This report highlights that over 80% of care services in Scotland are judged to be good, very good or excellent in respect of the quality of care they provide. Inspectors regularly identify that stable and consistent staff teams are an important component of high quality social care which supports people well.

However more than a third of social care services across Scotland have reported unfilled staff vacancies in the past year. Some key figures from the report revealed:

  • At 31 December 2016, 41% of services with vacancies reported having problems filling them; up 2 percentage points from the previous year.
  • Particularly high proportions of the following types of services reported problems filling vacancies: care at home services (64%), care homes for older people (57%), care homes for adults (49%) and housing support services (48%).
  • Aberdeen (57%), Perth and Kinross (52%) and Fife (51% of services) had the highest proportion of services reporting that vacancies were hard to fill.
  • Too few applicants with experience (58%), too few applicants in general (58%) and too few qualified applicants (50%) were the most common themes within most service types reported for why vacancies were hard to fill.

Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said:

“Most people in Scotland experience high quality care which is down to the dedication, professionalism and commitment of the social care workforce. Our evidence shows that people benefit from an effective and stable staff team which allows people experiencing care to build trusting relationships with the people supporting them.”

These findings completely mirror the research which has been conducted by Scottish Care in the last year. They highlight a real crisis in recruitment and retention, not least in older people’s care.

Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care, in responding to the report said:

“Social care in Scotland faces a fundamental crisis. The Care Inspectorate report together with our own work at Scottish Care states quite clearly that we are at the point of services becoming unsustainable and unable to deliver given the current recruitment and workforce crisis. The entire fabric of social care will begin to disintegrate without serious intervention and this will have a profound effect on the sustainability of wider health and social care supports.

Scottish Care has been warning about the workforce crisis for some time. We have spoken out about the unsustainable levels of contracts for care at home and housing support provision which are forcing many organisations to turn down work or leave the sector completely. Care homes are equally faced with the combined challenges of new regulation, workforce vacancies, increased use of agencies, Brexit and levels of fee income that are simply not sufficient.

The average social care worker earns the Scottish Living wage [£8.45 an hour. Given that you can earn a few pounds more stacking shelves in a supermarket. It’s not really surprising that individuals are choosing less demanding jobs that offer more money.

We’ve reached a point where we need to undertake an urgent review of how we give value to those who work in the sector. We need to offer them a proper sense of worth and the feeling that they are contributing to the greater good of society. Ultimately, we need to improve pay. When you have bills to pay, you’re going to go to a job that pays you more, no matter how rewarding you find social care.

Social care needs to become a priority for the whole of Scotland and not just a party political issue. We cannot continue to deliver quality care on the inadequate resources the public purse is contributing. Given the equal realities of austerity and the choices that that has led to it is time for all of us to start talking not about what we can afford but what the true cost of care is. Care with dignity should not be at the cost of a stretched and dedicated workforce. It is time to care about care.”

#careaboutcare

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Finalists announced for Care Home Awards 2017

Scottish Care is delighted to announce the finalists for this year's Care Home Awards 2017.  With more entries than ever, the Awards have been extremely hotly contested this year.  Huge congratulations to all who were nominated and those who have been selected by the judges as 2017 finalists.  Winners will be announced at the evening Awards Ceremony on Friday 17th November, with some additional Awards to be celebrated on the night.

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Latest Blog from our CEO: Facing up to care reality

Speaking at a fringe meeting of the Conservative Party conference the Social Care Minister Jackie Doyle-Price suggested that people should not expect that the houses they live in should be able to be passed on to the next generation as an inheritance. She said that it should not be seen as the role of the state to pay for our care in old age if we can afford to do so ourselves.

Her intervention has led to the start of a strident debate and media discussion. Language such as ‘dementia tax‘ has reappeared in the political lexicon. Inescapably, however, as I said on the BBC last week this is a discussion we badly need to have in Scotland.

Over the past year Scottish Care has continually articulated a message that the older peoples care sector in Scotland is at a point of real challenge if not crisis. We have a nursing shortage of 28% average vacancies; 9 out of 10 care at home providers are unable to recruit to key posts, and nursing care home providers have recently told me they are paying £1000 for one agency nurse to do a night-shift in some parts of the country. Pressures from growing costs, increased registration and regulatory requirements and increasing levels of clinical demand are pushing providers to the very edge.

Faced with such realities people can react in diverse ways.

There might be a tendency on the part of some to bury their heads and assume things will get better without any strategic intervention. They won’t!
There is an equal tendency to seek to do less for more – however, any short term financial gains achieved by such an approach will soon evaporate as individuals no longer deemed eligible for support become more and more unwell and are put at increasing risk. The reduction in the use of care home placements combined with a lack of adequately resourcing care at home and housing support is a game of care roulette with only one victim, the vulnerable older person desperately in need of support and care.

Another reaction is the desire to reform and change. This is undeniably necessary not least in the way we purchase care and treat older people in a discriminatory manner with regards to choice and control such as through the operation of self-directed support. Equally important is the desire to innovate and re-design but if ‘new models of care’ are viewed as some sort of panacea for our current ills we risk losing creative innovation and care entrepreneurship as fatigue and failure take root. Even with progressive use of technology we aren’t going to find a magic chic of gold at the bottom of the care garden.

Overarching all this is a response which says we are doing a lot anyway, we are doing better than others and that we are spending more than we ever have. All of these might very well be true as is the oft heard statement that we need to transfer resources from acute clinical delivery into primary and community health and social care.

But …
and it is a big but. The fact is we have not robustly undertaken an analysis of whether even with reformed, dynamic, localised, non- institutionalised interventions, there will indeed be sufficiency of financial resource it is difficult not to conclude that there is a substantial inadequacy of resource in social care. That is what frontline staff and providers are telling me up and down the country. In particular as we live for longer and with better health, how will we pay for increased dependencies and an even greater volume of care and health need?

Integration is part of the answer to that puzzle but so too is a serious debate about the mechanisms needed to be able to pay for health and care. We need to collectively have a debate about the ethics of being treated free at the point of care if you develop one condition such as cancer but if you live with dementia there will be a greater likelihood you will have to pay. We need to have a debate about the ethics of inheritance and contribution. We need to start to shape the nature of decisions around personal insurance, income tax, separate taxation for care etc.

And we need to do so urgently. This goes way way beyond our politicians. In no way should the care and support of the most vulnerable be used as a party political football. We deserve better and need to find political and societal consensus, agreement and collective resolve.

The debate is urgent. The decisions are necessary. The desired resolution desperately needed.

In our capital city you can now earn more from being a dog walker than supporting the old in their home to live independently and with dignity.
I’m not sure that is the sort of society most of us would want but that is what is our real inheritance unless we act to change it.

Donald Macaskill

@DrDMacaskill

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Action on Elder Abuse Scotland National Conference – 27 October

Action on Elder Abuse Scotland National Conference (in association with Scottish Care)

Choice, Empowerment, Protection.... Can We Achieve Them All?
A human rights-based approach to supporting, empowering & protecting older people

27th October, Hilton Hotel, William Street, Glasgow

  • Is it possible to support and protect adults at risk of harm, while ensuring real choice and empowerment for the individual?
  • How we do we deliver a human rights-based approach to care, support and protection with increasingly stretched resources?
  • How can we best balance human rights and risks in the delivery of care, support and protection?

 

Two of Scotland's leading representative organisations invite you to join our debate on these issues, and more, at our engaging conference on 27th October.

The conference will run from 10am until 3.50pm, and includes a combination of presentations, debates and workshops. There will also be a range of exhibitors providing information and materials to showcase good practice and provide information.

Who is this conference relevant for?

The conference will be of interest to anyone with an interest in older people, adult support and protection, and human rights, including frontline and managerial staff in:

·         local authorities and other public sector bodies

·         third and independent sector agencies

·         care providers

·         NHS and independent healthcare providers

·         the police and regulatory bodies

·         solicitors and other legal professionals

·         students and academics

The conference will be relevant to both those new to adult support and protection, and experienced practitioners. It will also be of interest to older people and carers with an interest in this area (there will be no delegate fee for older people and unpaid carers).

Key themes and topics

Come along and join the discussion on:

  • whether or not current measures for protecting vulnerable adults in Scotland contain appropriate safeguards and promote individual empowerment
  • managing tensions between individual autonomy and adult support and protection
  • facilitating and promoting human rights in challenging economic circumstances in health and social care
  • balancing human rights and risks in care delivery
  • advocacy and empowerment
  • tackling financial harm in a familial context
  • supporting those who self-neglect

Book your place today!

At only £24+vat for AEA members and £30+vat for non-members, this a conference you can’t afford to miss!

Find out more and book your place here: www.elderabuse.org.uk/events-scotland